Danielle Hickey Photo Editor
University psychology Professor Edward Vogel’s study, demonstrating for the first time a direct relationship between brain nerve activity
and memory capacity, appeared in the April 15 issue of Nature magazine.
STUDY
continued from page 1
tasks such as reasoning, mathematics
and following directions."
The results of Vogel's research were
published in the April 15 issue of Na
ture magazine.
Using electrodes placed on the
scalp, Vogel and Machizawa collect
ed data suggesting that neural activi
ty can reveal the limitations of aware
ness — the visual working memory
for each person — and provides a
window into how the brain controls
our cognition.
In their research, Vogel and
Machizawa showed subjects a display
with a number of objects on it. They
then waited and showed subjects two
cards; one identical to the first display
and another with a change in the col
or of one of the objects. They asked
subjects to point out the original set
of objects while recording the sub
jects' neural activity.
Subjects were successful in four
trials, but were less successful pick
ing the correct set after a fifth object
was added. Neural activity increased
with the addition of each object
until the fourth or fifth was added,
at which point neural activity lev
eled as subjects struggled to remem
ber the correct set.
According to Vogel, the research
opens the door to studying how peo
ple hold objects in their awareness.
Vogel is not the only scientist who
sees the research's potential.
University Associate Professor of
psychology Ed Awh, who studies
cognitive theory, said there are many
uses for research into the human
cognitive process, including some
practical applications.
"We have a limited number of tools
in cognitive neural science," Awh said.
"People for decades have worked with
a small number of processes, but this
will open up a huge amount of appli
cations. If we can develop more mod
els of short-term cognitive theory,
then we can develop theories about
cognitive diseases like (attention
deficit disorder)."
Awh said the research may also
help with other attention problems or
with skills requiring attention, like
learning or flying a plane.
Vogel said he first stumbled into re
searching visual awareness while
working on experiments in the mid
1990s at the University of Iowa.
"We were interested in some other
experiment," he said. "1 don't even re
member what it was, and we realized
that it would be really useful to be
able to study this one thing if we
knew what the capacity of the visual
working memory is. We realized it
hadn't been done."
Vogel said visual processing hap
pens within a few hundred millisec
onds after light enters the eye in a
process of identification, memory
building and recognition.
Machizawa, who did his under
graduate work at the University, met
Vogel while looking for opportunities
to research event-related potentials, or
how scientists measure the brain's
electrical activity as it corresponds to
experiments.
Machizawa said he is surprised by
the attention the research has garnered.
"I never dreamed of it, but I think
it's cool," Machizawa said. "In terms
of publishing in Nature, for the scien
tific field, that's very good."
Others in the field agree that hav
ing research findings published in a
scientific journal like Nature is mo
mentous. "Nature and Science are
the two premier journals as far as
scientific research goes," Awh said.
"To be published in them is to be
published in one of the most presti
gious spots."
Contact the
business/science/technology reporter
at stevenneuman@dailyemerald.com.
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