Alex Burmester, New York University When you need to remember a phone number, a shopping list or a set of instructions, you rely on what psychologists and neuroscientists refer to as working memory. It’s the ability to hold and manipulate information in mind, over brief intervals. It’s for things that are important to you in… Continue reading Working memory: How you keep things ‘in mind’ over the short term
Category: The Conversation
How do our brains reconstruct the visual world?
Alex Burmester, New York University Given that we see the world through two small, flat retinae at the backs of our eyes, it seems remarkable that what each of us perceives is a seamless, three-dimensional visual world. The retinae respond to various wavelengths of light from the world around us. But that’s just the first… Continue reading How do our brains reconstruct the visual world?
Gambling on limited information: our visual system and probabilistic inference
Alex Burmester, New York University Imagine walking along in the African savanna. Suddenly you notice a moving bush partially obscuring a large yellow object. From this limited information, you need to figure out if you’re in danger and decide how to react. Is it a pile of dry grass? Or a hungry lion? In situations… Continue reading Gambling on limited information: our visual system and probabilistic inference