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Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Apr 2024Social semantic memory guides many aspects of behavior. Individuals rely on acquired and inferred knowledge about personal characteristics and group membership to... (Review)
Review
Social semantic memory guides many aspects of behavior. Individuals rely on acquired and inferred knowledge about personal characteristics and group membership to predict the behavior and character of social targets. These predictions then determine the expectations from, the behavior in, and the interpretations of social interactions. According to predictive processing accounts, mnemonic and attentional mechanisms should enhance the processing of prediction-violating events. However, empirical findings suggest that prediction-consistent social events are often better remembered. This mini-review integrates recent evidence from social and non-social memory research to highlight the role of motivation in explaining these discrepancies. A particular emphasis is given to the continuous nature of prediction-(in)consistency, the epistemic tendency of perceivers to maintain or update their knowledge, and the dynamic influences of motivation on multiple steps in prediction-driven social memory. The suggested framework provides a coherent outlook of existing work and offers promising future directions to better understand the ebb and flow of social memoranda.
Topics: Humans; Motivation; Memory; Mental Recall; Attention
PubMed: 38437974
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105613 -
Scientific Reports Aug 2023Memorability refers to the intrinsic property of an image that determines how well it is remembered or forgotten. Recent studies have found that memorability is highly...
Memorability refers to the intrinsic property of an image that determines how well it is remembered or forgotten. Recent studies have found that memorability is highly consistent across individuals. However, most studies on memorability were conducted with participants from Western cultures, and the images used in memorability studies were culturally biased. Previous studies implicitly assumed that memorability would be held constant across different cultural groups; however, to the best of our knowledge, this has not yet been empirically investigated. In the current study, we recruited participants from South Korea and the US and examined whether image memorability was consistent across these two cultures. We found that South Korean participants showed greater memory performance for images rated highly memorable by US participants. The current findings provide converging evidence that image memorability is not fully accounted for by individual differences, and suggest the possibility of cross-cultural consistency in image memorability.
Topics: Humans; Memory; Cross-Cultural Comparison; Mental Recall; Cognition; Memory Disorders
PubMed: 37543662
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-39988-5 -
Acta Psychologica May 2024The reflexive imagery task (RIT) has been used to investigate stimulus-elicited involuntary mental processes. The task has been successful in eliciting involuntary...
The reflexive imagery task (RIT) has been used to investigate stimulus-elicited involuntary mental processes. The task has been successful in eliciting involuntary perceptual experiences, urges, and even higher-order cognitions, but it has never been used to elicit autobiographical memories, even though in everyday life these memories are often activated involuntarily by external stimuli. These memories are different in interesting ways from the kinds of mental representations that have been activated involuntarily in the RIT. The memories have properties which might make them insusceptible to such a form of external influence. Perhaps substantive effects will not arise because the mental representations associated with autobiographical memories are complex, poly-sensory, and rich in terms of content. To investigate this matter, we developed a variant of the RIT in which participants were presented with external stimuli (line drawings of everyday objects) and instructed not to recall any autobiographical memories. We investigated whether the nature of the involuntary memories was influenced by the nature of the stimulus. In two experiments, the involuntary memories were associated to the stimulus on a majority of the trials (∼80%). We discuss theoretical implications of this finding and of identifying the conditions in which such involuntary effects will not arise. The boundary conditions of the RIT effect illuminate the limits of unconscious processing and also the role of conscious processing in nervous function.
Topics: Humans; Memory, Episodic; Mental Recall; Cognition; Imagery, Psychotherapy; Consciousness
PubMed: 38492356
DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2024.104212 -
Nature Communications Jul 2023Observers learn to fear the context in which they witnessed a demonstrator's aversive experience, called observational contextual fear conditioning (CFC). The neural...
Observers learn to fear the context in which they witnessed a demonstrator's aversive experience, called observational contextual fear conditioning (CFC). The neural mechanisms governing whether recall of the observational CFC memory occurs from the observer's own or from the demonstrator's point of view remain unclear. Here, we show in male mice that recent observational CFC memory is recalled in the observer's context only, but remote memory is recalled in both observer and demonstrator contexts. Recall of recent memory in the observer's context requires dorsal hippocampus activity, while recall of remote memory in both contexts requires the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC)-basolateral amygdala pathway. Although mPFC neurons activated by observational CFC are involved in remote recall in both contexts, distinct mPFC subpopulations regulate remote recall in each context. Our data provide insights into a flexible recall strategy and the functional reorganization of circuits and memory engram cells underlying observational CFC memory.
Topics: Mice; Male; Animals; Learning; Mental Recall; Memory; Hippocampus; Prefrontal Cortex; Fear; Memory Consolidation
PubMed: 37407567
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-39718-5 -
Cognition & Emotion Feb 2024Long-term memory manages its contents to facilitate adaptive behaviour, amplifying representations of information relevant to current goals and expediting forgetting of...
Long-term memory manages its contents to facilitate adaptive behaviour, amplifying representations of information relevant to current goals and expediting forgetting of information that competes with relevant memory traces. Both mnemonic selection and inhibition maintain congruence between the contents of long-term memory and an organism's priorities. However, the capacity of these processes to modulate affective mnemonic representations remains ambiguous. Three empirical experiments investigated the consequences of mnemonic selection and inhibition on affectively charged and neutral mnemonic representations using an adapted retrieval practice paradigm. Participants encoded neutral cue words and affectively negative or neutral associates and then selectively retrieved a subset of these associates multiple times. The consequences of selection and inhibitory processes engaged during selective retrieval were evaluated on a final memory test in which recall for all studied associates was probed. Analyses of memory recall indicated that both affectively neutral and negative mnemonic representations experienced similar levels of enhancement and impairment following selective retrieval, demonstrating the susceptibility of affectively salient memories to these mnemonic processes. These findings indicate that although affective memories may be more strongly encoded in memory, they remain amenable to inhibition and flexibly adaptable to the evolving needs of the organism.
Topics: Humans; Memory; Mental Recall; Emotions; Memory, Long-Term; Inhibition, Psychological
PubMed: 37926986
DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2023.2279156 -
Psychological Review Apr 2024Most of us have experienced moments when we could not recall some piece of information but felt that it was just out of reach. Research in metamemory has established...
Most of us have experienced moments when we could not recall some piece of information but felt that it was just out of reach. Research in metamemory has established that such judgments are often accurate; but what adaptive purpose do they serve? Here, we present an optimal model of how metacognitive monitoring (feeling of knowing) could dynamically inform metacognitive control of memory (the direction of retrieval efforts). In two experiments, we find that, consistent with the optimal model, people report having a stronger memory for targets they are likely to recall and direct their search efforts accordingly, cutting off the search when it is unlikely to succeed and prioritizing the search for stronger memories. Our results suggest that metamemory is indeed adaptive and motivate the development of process-level theories that account for the dynamic interplay between monitoring and control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
Topics: Humans; Metacognition; Memory; Mental Recall; Judgment; Emotions
PubMed: 37732967
DOI: 10.1037/rev0000441 -
PloS One 2023Thoughts shape our experience, choice, and behaviour throughout the day. Yet the content of 'penumbral thoughts'-first thoughts upon waking-has received very little...
Thoughts shape our experience, choice, and behaviour throughout the day. Yet the content of 'penumbral thoughts'-first thoughts upon waking-has received very little research attention. Across seven independent samples (total N = 829), we used recall and reflection methods, solicited the same day, to understand what individuals think as they regain consciousness. These penumbral thoughts show remarkable thematic consistency: individuals were most likely to reflect on their somatic or psychological state, focus on temporal orientation, and prioritise waking actions. Survey results demonstrate that temporal and spatial orientation are dominated by the current time and the day ahead, rather than the past or other future timescales. Our results provide some insight into the order of priority in consciousness. We conclude that establishing one's temporal position is important to the daily process of 'rebooting' conscious awareness.
Topics: Humans; Consciousness; Attention; Mental Recall; Time
PubMed: 38096272
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0289654 -
Current Biology : CB Dec 2023Information derived from experiences is incorporated into the brain as changes to ensembles of cells, termed engram cells, which allow memory storage and recall. The...
Information derived from experiences is incorporated into the brain as changes to ensembles of cells, termed engram cells, which allow memory storage and recall. The mechanism by which those changes hold specific information is unclear. Here, we test the hypothesis that the specific synaptic wiring between engram cells is the substrate of information storage. First, we monitor how learning modifies the connectivity pattern between engram cells at a monosynaptic connection involving the hippocampal ventral CA1 (vCA1) region and the amygdala. Then, we assess the functional significance of these connectivity changes by artificially activating or inhibiting its presynaptic and postsynaptic components, respectively. Finally, we identify a synaptic plasticity mechanism mediated by postsynaptic density protein 95 (PSD-95), which impacts the connectivity pattern among engram cells and contributes to the long-term stability of the memory. These findings impact our theory of learning and memory by helping us explain the translation of specific information into engram cells and how these connections shape brain function.
Topics: CA1 Region, Hippocampal; Mental Recall; Learning; Neuronal Plasticity; Amygdala
PubMed: 37992719
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.10.074 -
Psychological Science Feb 2024Working memory has been comprehensively studied in sensory domains, like vision, but little attention has been paid to how motor information (e.g., kinematics of recent...
Working memory has been comprehensively studied in sensory domains, like vision, but little attention has been paid to how motor information (e.g., kinematics of recent movements) is maintained and manipulated in working memory. "Motor working memory" (MWM) is important for short-term behavioral control and skill learning. Here, we employed tasks that required participants to encode and recall reaching movements over short timescales. We conducted three experiments ( = 65 undergraduates) to examine MWM under varying cognitive loads, delays, and degrees of interference. The results support a model of MWM that includes an abstract code that flexibly transfers across effectors, and an effector-specific code vulnerable to interfering movements, even when interfering movements are irrelevant to the task. Neither code was disrupted by increasing visuospatial working memory load. These results echo distinctions between representational formats in other domains, suggesting that MWM shares a basic computational structure with other working memory subsystems.
Topics: Humans; Memory, Short-Term; Attention; Mental Recall; Movement; Students
PubMed: 38236687
DOI: 10.1177/09567976231221756 -
Memory (Hove, England) Jul 2023The argument for a female advantage in word list learning is often based on partial observations that focus on a single component of the task. Using a large sample...
The argument for a female advantage in word list learning is often based on partial observations that focus on a single component of the task. Using a large sample ( = 4403) of individuals 13-97 years of age from the general population, we investigated whether this advantage is consistently reflected in learning, recall, and recognition and how other cognitive abilities differentially support word list learning. A robust female advantage was found in all subcomponents of the task. Semantic clustering mediated the effects of short-term and working memory on long-delayed recall and recognition, and serial clustering on short-delayed recall. These indirect effects were moderated by sex, with men benefiting more from reliance on each clustering strategy than women. Auditory attention span mediated the effect of pattern separation on true positives in word recognition, and this effect was stronger in men than in women. Men had better short-term and working memory scores, but lower auditory attention span and were more vulnerable to interference both in delayed recall and recognition. Thus, our data suggest that auditory attention span and interference control (inhibition), rather than short-term or working memory scores, semantic and/or serial clustering on their own, underlie better performance on word list learning in women.
Topics: Male; Humans; Female; Verbal Learning; Learning; Memory, Short-Term; Mental Recall; Cognition
PubMed: 37114402
DOI: 10.1080/09658211.2023.2203431