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Letters to Nature
Nature 428, 751-754 (15 April 2004) | doi:10.1038/nature02466; Received 11 January 2004; Accepted 9 March 2004
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Capacity limit of visual short-term memory in human posterior parietal cortex
- Vanderbilt Vision Research Center, Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, 530 Wilson Hall, Nashville, Tennessee 37203, USA
Correspondence to: René Marois1 Email: rene.marois@vanderbilt.edu
Abstract
At any instant, our visual system allows us to perceive a rich and detailed visual world. Yet our internal, explicit representation of this visual world is extremely sparse: we can only hold in mind a minute fraction of the visual scene1, 2. These mental representations are stored in visual short-term memory (VSTM). Even though VSTM is essential for the execution of a wide array of perceptual and cognitive functions3, 4, 5, and is supported by an extensive network of brain regions6, 7, 8, 9, its storage capacity is severely limited10, 11, 12, 13. With the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging, we show here that this capacity limit is neurally reflected in one node of this network: activity in the posterior parietal cortex is tightly correlated with the limited amount of scene information that can be stored in VSTM. These results suggest that the posterior parietal cortex is a key neural locus of our impoverished mental representation of the visual world.
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