Keynote Speaker

Working Memory and Cognition Inside and Outside of the Focus of Attention
Thursday, November 21 | 6:30 PM - 7:30 PM U.S. Eastern Time  | Westside Ballroom

Captioning, as well as an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter, will be available for this address.
This event will be recorded for on-demand viewing and made available post-event in December. 

Nelson Cowan
University of Missouri, USA
This talk illustrates how research can be guided by a conceptual model of information processing and working memory, in this case the embedded-processes model. In this model, the focus of attention is embedded within the activated portion of long-term memory. Both contribute to working memory, the limited amount of information temporarily held in mind and used to carry out various mental activities. Working memory is involved, for example, in comprehension, reading, math, and problem-solving. There are some fundamental questions about it. What limits our working memory when attention is available for a task, versus when attention is instead directed elsewhere? How does attention pursue goals and deal with distractions? I will start by describing some theoretical background of the embedded-processes approach. Then I will consider what we know, from old and new studies, of three aspects of the mind: (1) the capacity of the focus of attention, (2) the persistence of temporary activation of features and concepts in long-term memory, and (3) the direction of attention by a combination of voluntary and involuntary processes. For each component, I will illustrate foundational evidence, subsequent evidence that has motivated changes in the theory, and practical applications of the research topics to education, health, and communication. The evidence includes cognitive behavioral and neuroscientific contributions and considers life span development from childhood onward.

• View his 2024 Keynote Presentation (YouTube video) here.
• View his 2024 Keynote Speaker Presentation (PPT) here.
• Read Nelson Cowan's Keynote Introduction (PDF) here.
• Read the Tribute to Nelson Cowan (PDF) here.

For related reading:

About Nelson
Nelson Cowan is the Curators' Distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri. He specializes in working memory, the small amount of information held in mind and used for language processing and various kinds of problem solving. To overcome conceptual difficulties that arise for models of information processing in which different functions occur in separate boxes, Cowan proposed a more organically organized "embedded processes" model. Within it, representations held in working memory comprise an activated subset of the representations held in long-term memory, with a smaller subset held in a more integrated form in the current focus of attention. Other work has been on the developmental growth of working memory capacity and the scientific method. His work, funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1984 (primarily NICHD), has been cited over 57,000 times according to Google Scholar. The work has resulted in over 300 peer-reviewed articles, over 60 book chapters, 2 sole-authored books, and 5 edited volumes.

View a list of past keynote speakers.