Cognition Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Cognition, including details on psychology, neuroscience, memory, brain theory.

Brain mechanisms of proactive interference in working memory.

Jonides J, Nee DE

Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 525 East University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1109, USA. jjonides@umich.edu

It has long been known that storage of information in working memory suffers as a function of proactive interference. Here we review the results of experiments using approaches from cognitive neuroscience to reveal a pattern of brain activity that is a signature of proactive interference. Many of these results derive from a single paradigm that requires one to resolve interference from a previous experimental trial. The importance of activation in left inferior frontal cortex is shown repeatedly using this task and other tasks. We review a number of models that might account for the behavioral and imaging findings about proactive interference, raising questions about the adequacy of these models.

Published 4 April 2006 in Neuroscience, 139(1): 181-93.
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