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SUMMARY:An Interference Model of Visual Working Memory - Professor Klaus O
 berauer\, Department of Psychology\, University of Zurich
DTSTART:20171027T153000Z
DTEND:20171027T163000Z
UID:TALK72921@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Louise White
DESCRIPTION:Popular models of visual working memory assume that working me
 mory is limited by a constant resource\, which is conceived as either quan
 tized (as in slot models) or infinitely divisible. These models share the 
 assumption that the probability and quality of retrieval depends on the re
 source assigned to a representation in working memory. I will present an a
 lternative model that incorporates the principles of general theories of m
 emory: Retrieval is cue-based\, and performance is limited by interference
  arising from several sources. Representations compete for retrieval accor
 ding to the amount of activation each of them receives at retrieval. Activ
 ation arises from three sources: Persistent activation of representations 
 of recently encoded items\, activation from the retrieval cue\, and backgr
 ound noise. One item is held in the focus of attention\; this item is repr
 esented with higher precision\, and suffers less interference from competi
 ng items and from noise. So far the model explains set-size effects as wel
 l as pre- and retro-cue effects in the continuous-reproduction paradigm. O
 ngoing work aims at extending the model to recognition/change detection\; 
 depending on how much progress we make until October I will present some o
 f that work as well. \n\nBiosketch\n\nI have studied Psychology at Free Un
 iversity Berlin\, and received my PhD from University of Heidelberg in 199
 5. After many productive years in Reinhold Kliegl's lab at the University 
 of Potsdam I held a Chair at the University of Bristol (2005-2009). Since 
 2009 I am Professor of Cognitive Psychology at the University of Zurich. M
 y team's research focuses on the limits of human cognitive abilities\, and
  in particular the capacity limits of working memory and attention. In ess
 ence\, we ask: Why are people not smarter than they are? We study these qu
 estions through a combination of behavioral experiments\, individual-diffe
 rences studies\, and computational modeling. \n\n
LOCATION:Ground Floor Lecture Theatre\, Department of Psychology
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