- When
- Monday, May 11, 2026, 1:00 – 2:00 pm
- Event interval
- Single day event
- Campus location
- Kincaid Hall (KIN)
- Campus room
- Kincaid 102
- Accessibility contact
- chairpsy@uw.edu
- Event types
- Lectures/Seminars
- Description
- Working memory beyond the cortex
Anastasia Kiyonaga, Assistant Professor, Cognitive Science, UC San Diego
The core role of working memory (WM) is to sustain short-term goal content in mind for long enough to guide behavior. Yet the nervous system may engage myriad functions to accomplish that feat. WM signals are widely distributed across the brain and can now be detected in evolutionarily earlier structures than previously thought—like the cerebellum, thalamus, and superior colliculus. Mounting evidence also shows that even peripheral oculomotor and physiological signals can carry WM content, raising the question of just how far WM signals extend. I will describe a recent body of work where we test the idea that visual WM content is adaptively distributed across the nervous system—including the sensory receptors and motor effectors—according to behavioral demands. For instance, we find feature-specific WM content signals in pupil size modulations, spatio-temporal gaze sequences, and systematic manual gestures. We also find that such signatures are tailored to the unique behavioral demands of the situation, hinting that they are selective and functionally relevant. These findings converge on the idea that WM may recruit even the most primary structures in sensorimotor processing, to mentally represent goals and turn them into actions.
This lecture is made possible in part by a generous endowment from Professor Roger B. Loucks
Faculty host: Ione Fine - Map
- View Google Map