Investigations of the neural mechanisms underlying activation, rehearsal, and decay in human working memory

工作记忆是一种认知系统，它是为了储存、处理和操纵少量信息而进化的。 例如，工作记忆用于记住电话号码，进行心算，或者同时处理两项任务。当工作记忆中保存的信息是言语信息时，系统可以利用这样一个事实，即言语可以用听起来的方式（即感知代码）和说话的方式（即运动代码）来表示。 多年来对言语工作记忆的认知心理学研究表明，言语信息在记忆中保持“活跃”的方式是通过言语的听觉表征和运动表征之间的持续转换;这一过程发生在一个被称为“语音回路”的系统中。 在过去的20年里，语音回路已经在大脑中使用功能性神经成像技术绘制出来。 目前的研究试图证明，使用功能性磁共振成像（fMRI），大脑的听觉和运动之间的声音表示转换的能力至关重要地取决于大脑区域位于后部分的上级颞叶，命名区Spt。 此外，这项研究将表明，Spt不仅对语言工作记忆很重要，而且对涉及听觉感知和运动产生之间的联系或映射的认知活动也很重要，包括词汇习得，外语学习和许多音乐能力。

Working memory is a cognitive system that has evolved for the purpose of storing, processing, and manipulation of small quantities of information. For instance, working memory is used to keep a phone number in mind, to do mental arithmetic, or to juggle two tasks at once. When the information to be maintained in working memory is verbal, the system can take advantage of the fact that speech can be represented both in terms of the way it sounds (i.e. its perceptual code) and in the way it is spoken (i.e. its motor code). Many years of cognitive psychological research on verbal working memory has shown that the way verbal information is kept "active" in memory is by a continual conversion between auditory and motor representations of speech; and this process occurs in a system that is called the "phonological loop". In the past 20 years, the phonological loop has been mapped out in the brain using functional neuroimaging techniques. The current research seeks to demonstrate, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), that the brain's ability to convert between auditory and motor representations of sound crucially depends on a brain region located in a posterior part of the superior temporal lobe, named area Spt. In addition, this research will show that Spt is not just important for verbal working memory, but is indeed generally important for cognitive activities that involve the linking or mapping between auditory perception and motor production -- which includes vocabulary acquisition, foreign language learning, and many musical abilities.