A Neural Model of Binding and Capacity in Visual Working Memory

The number of objects that can be maintained in visual working memory without interference is limited. We present simulations of a model of visual working memory in ventral prefrontal cortex that has this constraint as well. One layer in ventral PFC constitutes a ’blackboard’ representation of all objects in memory. These representations are used to bind the features (shape, color, location) of the objects. If there are too many objects, their representations will interfere in the blackboard and therefore the quality of these representations will degrade. Consequently, it becomes harder to bind the features for any object maintained in memory, which reduces the capacity of working memory.