Activation and Information in Working Memory Research

Recent studies applying multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data sets have called into question long-held assumptions about the importance of sustained, elevated activity for the short-term retention of information (i.e., short-term and working memory). Findings from these studies include the fact that delay-period activity in frontal and parietal cortex may not correspond to information storage, per se, and that information that is in short-term memory, but outside the focus of attention, may be retained in a transient structural code.