Neurokognition des verbalen Arbeitsgedächtnisses: Speicher- und Kontrollprozesse

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Christian Fiebach
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2004 to 2006
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5422505

Working memory is a complex system of cognitive mechanisms for the tempory storage and manipulation of information in our minds. Manipulation here refers to controlled processes operating on the contents of working memory, including selection/inhibition of specific information, attentional shifts between different external or internal demands, or monitoring ongoing events for task-relevant information. Prominent therories postulate that the working memory for verbal information relies primarily on phonological codes. Clinical neuropsychological studies, however, suggest that several distinct linguistic subsystems contribute to verbal working memory: phonological, semantic, and syntactic. In the study of the neural bases of maintenance mechanisms, this refind view of verbal working memory has been largely neglected. In an other domain of language research, however, the distinction between phonology and semantics has been acknowledged and their respresentation in the left inferior prefrontal cortex is investigated using complex language tasks. These different approaches both tax prefrontal working memory processes involved in the controlled guidance of behavior. The present project integrates them with the ideas advanced in the neuropsychological literature on verbal working memory. The longterm goal is to establish a comprehensive model of the neural bases underlying maintance and control processes in the domain of verbal working memory.

• DFG Programme: Emmy Noether International Fellowships