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Working Memory and Consciousness: The Current State of Play

Working memory (WM), an important posit in cognitive science, allows one to temporarily store and manipulate information in the service of ongoing tasks. WM has been traditionally classified as an explicit memory system—that is, as operating on and maintaining only consciously perceived information....

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Persuh, Marjan, LaRock, Eric, Berger, Jacob
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5840147/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29551967
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00078
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author Persuh, Marjan
LaRock, Eric
Berger, Jacob
author_facet Persuh, Marjan
LaRock, Eric
Berger, Jacob
author_sort Persuh, Marjan
collection PubMed
description Working memory (WM), an important posit in cognitive science, allows one to temporarily store and manipulate information in the service of ongoing tasks. WM has been traditionally classified as an explicit memory system—that is, as operating on and maintaining only consciously perceived information. Recently, however, several studies have questioned this assumption, purporting to provide evidence for unconscious WM. In this article, we focus on visual working memory (VWM) and critically examine these studies as well as studies of unconscious perception that seem to provide indirect evidence for unconscious WM. Our analysis indicates that current evidence does not support an unconscious WM store, though we offer independent reasons to think that WM may operate on unconsciously perceived information.
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spelling pubmed-58401472018-03-16 Working Memory and Consciousness: The Current State of Play Persuh, Marjan LaRock, Eric Berger, Jacob Front Hum Neurosci Neuroscience Working memory (WM), an important posit in cognitive science, allows one to temporarily store and manipulate information in the service of ongoing tasks. WM has been traditionally classified as an explicit memory system—that is, as operating on and maintaining only consciously perceived information. Recently, however, several studies have questioned this assumption, purporting to provide evidence for unconscious WM. In this article, we focus on visual working memory (VWM) and critically examine these studies as well as studies of unconscious perception that seem to provide indirect evidence for unconscious WM. Our analysis indicates that current evidence does not support an unconscious WM store, though we offer independent reasons to think that WM may operate on unconsciously perceived information. Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-03-02 /pmc/articles/PMC5840147/ /pubmed/29551967 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00078 Text en Copyright © 2018 Persuh, LaRock and Berger. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Persuh, Marjan
LaRock, Eric
Berger, Jacob
Working Memory and Consciousness: The Current State of Play
title Working Memory and Consciousness: The Current State of Play
title_full Working Memory and Consciousness: The Current State of Play
title_fullStr Working Memory and Consciousness: The Current State of Play
title_full_unstemmed Working Memory and Consciousness: The Current State of Play
title_short Working Memory and Consciousness: The Current State of Play
title_sort working memory and consciousness: the current state of play
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5840147/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29551967
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00078
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