Getting value out of your working memory

How does working memory depends on attention, and how can attention be optimised to improve memory performance? Find out more from Dr Richard Allen.

Working memory is typically defined in terms of its limited temporal and informational capacity, with forgetting owing to overloading of capacity, interference, and failures of attentional control.

As such, it is useful to focus these limited resources on encoding, holding, and retrieving information as efficiently as possible to optimise task performance. One way of achieving this is to strategically focus attention on a subset of material that remains within capacity, rather than attempting to encode all information that is encountered and risk overwhelming available cognitive resources. Such an approach is particularly useful if material of greater value, importance, or goal-relevance is prioritised.

This talk will review recent experimental work designed to harness these processes across different methodologies and populations, with implications for working memory and attention, and how performance might be optimised.