At the intersection of attention and memory: The mechanistic role of the posterior parietal lobe in working memory

▸ In this study we compare two theoretical accounts of visual working memory. ▸ We tested two rare patients with bilateral parietal damage. ▸ Patients have impaired recognition working memory because people rely on familiarity. ▸ Patients have normal recall working memory because people use an active rehearsal based strategy. ▸ The posterior parietal lobe maintains attention on mnemonic representations.