Adaptive Cognition: How Flexible, but Selective Memory Use Shapes Behaviour

Monday, 1 June 2026, 4pm to 5pm

Our minds do more than simply react to the world; they adapt by flexibly controlling what we focus on and which memories we bring forward in the moment. Drawing on recent empirical work from our group, I will demonstrate how adaptive control is supported by both the internal selection of memory representations and the strategic trade-off between memory-based and sensory-guided behaviour. I will show that internal attention shapes successful retrieval across short- and long-term visuo-spatial memory and we will see that these same internal attentional mechanisms extend to language, where the dynamic attentional selection of memory representations supports sentence comprehension. Moving beyond traditional laboratory tasks, I will then show that in immersive, naturalistic settings, people differ in how and when they rely on memory, revealing stable, adaptive strategies that are largely independent of memory capacity. Finally, we will see that across the lifespan, older adults often underuse working memory in everyday contexts, yet retain a strong ability to flexibly increase memory use when task demands rise. Together, these examples offer insight into how internal attention and flexible memory use support an adaptive behavioural repertoire in a complex world.

Speaker(s): Professor Dejan Draschkow

Series: Perspectives in Psychology - Departmental Seminar Series

Venue: The Life and Mind Building - The Life and Mind Building South Parks Road Oxford Oxfordshire OX1 3RB United Kingdom

Department: Experimental Psychology (Department)

Organiser: Professor Asifa Majid; Professor Matthew Rushworth

Host: Professor Asifa Majid