kierownik projektu: dr Renate Rutiku

Agencja finansująca: Narodowa Agencja Wymiany Akademickiej
Program: Program Stanisława Ulama
Kwota finansowania: 252 000 PLN

Working memory capacity, the ability to hold multiple item representations active in ones mind, plays a central role in higher-order cognition and has been instrumental in explaining why individuals differ in their cognitive ability. Somewhat surprisingly, the subjective experience associated with working memory performance continues to receive very little attention. Yet newer developments point to the possibility that working memory could in fact be much more intimately linked to subjective perceptual experience than previously thought.

As part of the larger SkuldNet consortium, Renate's project aims to combine advanced neuroimaging techniques with a novel working memory paradigm in order to explore how macro- and mesoscopic brain structure and brain activity relate to the unique way people experience the world. The research project thus has the potential to not only impact our understanding of consciousness, working memory, and their shared neural underpinnings, but also provide firm empirical evidence for the functional role of consciousness in higher-order cognition.