Working memory is the ability to store and manipulate information in mind to guide behaviour. This mental buffer is limited in how much it can store and, initially, it was thought to be highly inflexible. Our research played a pivotal role in recasting working memory as a highly flexible system, by demonstrating that it is possible to focus selectively and interchangeably on individual objects in mind to guide adaptive behaviour. More broadly, our research promotes the view of working memory as a functional bridging system (and not just as a representational store), prioritising and selecting temporarily stored information in the service of future behaviour. 

Current topics of research include:

• Using VR to understand how and when we rely on working memory during natural, immersive behaviour
• Using peripheral markers (such as gaze bias and pupillometry) to investigate the workings and properties of selective attention in working memory
• How information about prospective action is encoded and deployed in working memory

Theoretical perspectives:

• van Ede F, Nobre AC (2023) Turning attention inside out: how working memory serves behaviour. Annual Review of Psychology, 74:137-65. (Review)
• van Ede F and Nobre AC (2021) Toward a neurobiology of internal selective attention. Trends in Neurosciences. (Comment)
• Nobre AC, Stokes (2020) Chapter 25: Memory and attention: the back and forth. In MS Gazzaniga, editor. The Cognitive Neurosciences, 6th Edition (pp. 291–300). Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Nobre AC and Stokes MG (2019) Premembering experience: a hierarchy of time-scales for proactive attention. Neuron 104(1):132–46. (Review)

Key empirical contributions:

• Boettcher SEP, Gresch D, Nobre AC, van Ede F (2021) Output planning at the input stage in visual working memory. Science Advances, 7:eabe8212.
• Draschkow D, Kallmayer M, Nobre AC (2021) When natural behaviour engages working memory. Current Biology, 31(4):869–74. 
• van Ede F, Board A, Nobre AC (2020) Goal-directed and stimulus-driven selection of internal representations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 117(39):24590–8. 
• Zokaei N, Board AG, Manohar SG, Nobre AC (2019) Modulation of pupillary response by the content of visual working memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of the United States of America, 116(45):22802-10.
• Van Ede F, Niklaus M, Nobre AC (2017) Temporal expectations guide dynamic prioritization in visual working memory through attenuated α oscillations. Journal of Neuroscience 37(2):437–45.
• Griffin IC, Nobre AC (2003) Orienting attention to locations in internal representations. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 15(8):1176–94.