The future, before, and after: Bayesian and multivariate analyses reveal shared and unique neural mechanisms of imagining and remembering the same unique event.

Research shows that the brain regions that subserve our ability to remember the past are also involved in imagining the future. Given this similarity in brain activity, it remains unclear how brain activity distinguishes imagination from memory. In the current work, we scanned participants using functional magnetic resonance imaging before and after they performed a highly unique and elaborate activity wherein they went skydiving for the first time in their lives.

The Neural Correlates of Updating and Gating in Procedural Working Memory.

Goal-directed behavior relies on maintaining relevant goals in working memory (WM) and updating them when required. Computational modeling, behavioral, and neuroimaging work has previously identified the processes and brain regions involved in selecting, updating, and maintaining declarative information, such as letters and pictures. However, the neural substrates that underlie the analogous processes that operate on procedural information, namely, task goals, are currently unknown.

Neural Substrates of Working Memory Updating.

Working memory (WM) needs to protect current content from interference and simultaneously be amenable to rapid updating with newly relevant information. An influential model suggests these opposing requirements are met via a BG-thalamus gating mechanism that allows for selective updating of PFC WM representations. A large neuroimaging literature supports the general involvement of PFC, BG, and thalamus, as well as posterior parietal cortex, in WM.

Multi-inducer grouping for curve completion: Perceptual and computational exploration.

The human visual system excels in object recognition and scene interpretation even in scenes in which some (or even all) observed objects are partially occluded or fragmented. This highly efficient capacity is facilitated by constructive processes of contour completion between inducers to yield the perception of whole objects across gaps. A fundamental problem of the process is when and how the visual system groups different inducers in the visual scene between which completion occurs.