Article

To guide our behavior in successful ways, we often need to rely on information
that is no longer in view, but maintained in visual short-term memory (VSTM).
While VSTM is usually broken down into iconic memory (brief and high-capacity
store) and visual working memory (sustained, yet limited-capacity store), recent
studies have suggested the existence of an additional and intermediate form of
VSTM that depends on activity in extrastriate cortex. In previous work, we have
shown that this fragile form of VSTM can be dissociated from iconic memory. In
the present study, we provide evidence that fragile VSTM is different from visual
working memory as magnetic stimulation of the right dorsolateral prefrontal
cortex (DLPFC) disrupts visual working memory, while leaving fragile VSTM intact.
In addition, we observed that people with high DLPFC activity had superior
working memory capacity compared to people with low DLPFC activity, and only
people with high DLPFC activity really showed a reduction in working memory
capacity in response to magnetic stimulation. Altogether, this study shows that
VSTM consists of three stages that have clearly different characteristics and
rely on different neural structures. On the methodological side, we show that it
is possible to predict individual susceptibility to magnetic stimulation based on
functional MRI activity.
CI - Crown Copyright (c) 2010. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS