OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Protecting information in working memory from distraction is essential to goal-directed behaviour. Discarding information from working memory may be just as important, as outdated information consumes precious storage capacity and can interfere with current goals. In this talk, I will discuss both of these abilities.
First, I will review recent advances in cognitive psychology and neuroscience that have produced new insights into the nature of working memory and its ability to resist distraction. This includes our recent findings which demonstrate that the benefits associated with prioritisation in working memory include a “bend but don’t break” policy for enduring distraction. Second, I will describe our recent neuroimaging work focused on intentionally removing information from working memory. We’ve identified distinct strategies for removal that have unique but stable patterns of brain activity with surprising consequences on the encoding of new information.
