The role of biased competition in visual short-term memory

► The study of visual short-term memory (VSTM) has excited the interest of many cognitive neuroscientists but much remains to be discovered about the way it functions and factors that affect its precision and capacity. ► Biased competition is a powerful theory that has been used to explain why the brain focuses its resources on a very few number of visual objects or locations to process for behavioural action. ► Recent research from Shapiro's lab has shown that the capacity, or at least performance of VSTM, can be significantly increased by circumventing the effects of biased competition. ► Understanding the effects of biased competition on aspects of VSTM shows great promise to understand more fully the way in which VSTM functions.