Working memory is what allows humans to juggle different pieces of information in short-term scenarios, like making a mental grocery list and then going shopping or remembering and then dialing a phone number.
While scientists agree that the capacity of working memory is limited, they offer competing theories about how and why this is true. But new research from scientists at the Carney Institute for Brain Science at Brown University shows why limits on working memory exist.
Michael Frank, a professor of cognitive and psychological sciences affiliated with the Carney Institute, and Aneri Soni, a graduate student in his lab, developed a new computer model of the basal ganglia and the thalamus – the parts of the brain relevant to working memory – that shows why limits on working memory…