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Trends in Cognitive Sciences Dec 2019Episodic memory allows us to mentally travel through time. How does the brain convert a simple reminder cue into a full-blown memory of past events and experiences? In... (Review)
Review
Episodic memory allows us to mentally travel through time. How does the brain convert a simple reminder cue into a full-blown memory of past events and experiences? In this review, we integrate recent developments in the cognitive neuroscience of human memory retrieval, pinpointing the neural chronometry underlying successful recall. Electrophysiological recordings suggest that sensory cues proceed into the medial temporal lobe within the first 500 ms. At this point, a hippocampal process sets in, geared toward internal pattern completion and coordination of cortical memory reinstatement between 500 and 1500 ms. We further highlight the dynamic principles governing the recall process, which include a reversal of perceptual information flows, temporal compression, and theta clocking.
Topics: Animals; Brain; Humans; Mental Recall; Time Factors
PubMed: 31672429
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2019.09.011 -
ELife May 2024Our ability to recall details from a remembered image depends on a single mechanism that is engaged from the very moment the image disappears from view.
Our ability to recall details from a remembered image depends on a single mechanism that is engaged from the very moment the image disappears from view.
Topics: Humans; Mental Recall
PubMed: 38700912
DOI: 10.7554/eLife.98274 -
ELife May 2022Current theory and empirical studies suggest that humans segment continuous experiences into events based on the mismatch between predicted and actual sensory inputs;...
Current theory and empirical studies suggest that humans segment continuous experiences into events based on the mismatch between predicted and actual sensory inputs; detection of these 'event boundaries' evokes transient neural responses. However, boundaries can also occur at transitions between internal mental states, without relevant external input changes. To what extent do such 'internal boundaries' share neural response properties with externally driven boundaries? We conducted an fMRI experiment where subjects watched a series of short movies and then verbally recalled the movies, unprompted, in the order of their choosing. During recall, transitions between movies thus constituted major boundaries between internal mental contexts, generated purely by subjects' unguided thoughts. Following the offset of each recalled movie, we observed stereotyped spatial activation patterns in the default mode network, especially the posterior medial cortex, consistent across different movie contents and even across the different tasks of movie watching and recall. Surprisingly, the between-movie boundary patterns did not resemble patterns at boundaries between events within a movie. Thus, major transitions between mental contexts elicit neural phenomena shared across internal and external modes and distinct from within-context event boundary detection, potentially reflecting a cognitive state related to the flushing and reconfiguration of situation models.
Topics: Brain Mapping; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Mental Recall; Motion Pictures
PubMed: 35635753
DOI: 10.7554/eLife.73693 -
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review Dec 2022Recall of studied material is typically impaired as time between study and test increases. Selective restudy can interrupt such time-dependent forgetting by enhancing...
Recall of studied material is typically impaired as time between study and test increases. Selective restudy can interrupt such time-dependent forgetting by enhancing recall not only of the restudied but also of the not restudied material. In two experiments, we examined whether this interruption of time-dependent forgetting reflects a transient or more lasting effect on recall performance. We analyzed time-dependent forgetting of studied items right after study and after time-lagged selective restudy. Restudy boosted recall of the not restudied items up to the levels observed directly after study and created a restart of time-dependent forgetting from this enhanced recall level. Critically, the forgetting after restudy was indistinguishable from the forgetting after study, suggesting that restudy induced a reset of recall for the not restudied items. The results are consistent with the idea that restudy reactivates the temporal context during study, thus facilitating recall of the not restudied items. In particular, the findings suggest that such context updating reflects a lasting effect that entails a restart of the original time-dependent forgetting. Results are discussed with respect to recent, similar findings on effects of time-lagged selective retrieval.
Topics: Humans; Mental Recall
PubMed: 35715684
DOI: 10.3758/s13423-022-02131-y -
Current Problems in Pediatric and... Jul 2014
Topics: Cognition; Humans; Learning; Mental Recall; Students, Medical; Teaching
PubMed: 24981667
DOI: 10.1016/j.cppeds.2014.01.007 -
Consciousness and Cognition Sep 2020Forgetting is typically viewed as counterproductive in everyday life. However, it may mainly be harmful when it is complete, that is, all-encompassing and permanent, and... (Review)
Review
Forgetting is typically viewed as counterproductive in everyday life. However, it may mainly be harmful when it is complete, that is, all-encompassing and permanent, and not when it is graded, that is, partial and fluctuating. I propose that forgetting is in fact mostly graded, and that this is an essential reason that it is often helpful. I delineate three ways in which forgetting may be graded. First, it may occur with respect to one, but not another, part of a memory. Second, it may occur in one context, but not in another. Third, forgetting may be present at one point in time, but not at another. Also, I propose that different levels of forgetting are possible, based on whether an engram or a context is unavailable, silent, restricted, latent, or potent. Overall, I hypothesize that forgetting is often helpful because it can be flexible and tailored to the circumstances.
Topics: Humans; Mental Recall
PubMed: 32763789
DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2020.102983 -
Physical Review Letters Jan 2020Human memory appears to be fragile and unpredictable. Free recall of random lists of words is a standard paradigm used to probe episodic memory. We proposed an...
Human memory appears to be fragile and unpredictable. Free recall of random lists of words is a standard paradigm used to probe episodic memory. We proposed an associative search process that can be reduced to a deterministic walk on random graphs defined by the structure of memory representations. The corresponding graph model can be solved analytically, resulting in a novel parameter-free prediction for the average number of memory items recalled (R) out of M items in memory: R=sqrt[3πM/2]. This prediction was verified with a specially designed experimental protocol combining large-scale crowd-sourced free recall and recognition experiments with randomly assembled lists of words or common facts. Our results show that human memory can be described by universal laws derived from first principles.
Topics: Humans; Mental Recall; Models, Biological; Models, Psychological
PubMed: 31976719
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.018101 -
Psychological Research Sep 2022This review reanalyses the data from four experiments originally designed to test the fragmentation hypothesis. Participants were asked to recall triple or quadruple... (Review)
Review
This review reanalyses the data from four experiments originally designed to test the fragmentation hypothesis. Participants were asked to recall triple or quadruple associates, cued by each of their components in turn, and to guess if they could not remember. There were many errors in recall and many of those errors were repetitions of previous errors. This reanalysis focuses, not on the fragmentation hypothesis, but on the repetition of errors. It works backwards through sequences of test trials to discover the best prior match to the responses on each trial. It reports frequencies of different categories of repetition, conditional probabilities of repetition, correct recalls, and the probability of repetition in relation to the lag between trial and match in the test sequence. These results may be summarised as (1) every event (a stimulus or a response or just a retrieval) to which the participant attends is separately recorded in memory, creating an ordered record of those events that have engaged the participant's attention; (2) the compilation of the record is automatic; while attention to a stimulus is at the participant's disposal, the consequent entry into memory is not, and (3) the retrieval of a potential response from memory is spontaneous; that retrieval becomes an overt response if it is compatible with the cue. This makes sense of a number of historic anomalies in the study of recall and informs some contemporary problems in the study of short-term memory.
Topics: Cues; Humans; Memory, Short-Term; Mental Recall
PubMed: 35288792
DOI: 10.1007/s00426-021-01598-z -
Canadian Journal of Experimental... Mar 2015We present a holographic theory of human memory. According to the theory, a subject's vocabulary resides in a dynamic distributed representation-a hologram. Studying or... (Review)
Review
We present a holographic theory of human memory. According to the theory, a subject's vocabulary resides in a dynamic distributed representation-a hologram. Studying or recalling a word alters both the existing representation of that word in the hologram and all words associated with it. Recall is always prompted by a recall cue (either a start instruction or the word just recalled). Order of report is a joint function of the item and associative information residing in the hologram at the time the report is made. We apply the model to archival data involving simple free recall, learning in multitrial free recall, simple serial recall, and learning in multitrial serial recall. The model captures accuracy and order of report in both free and serial recall. It also captures learning and subjective organisation in multitrial free recall. We offer the model as an alternative to the short- and long-term account of memory postulated in the modal model.
Topics: Humans; Learning; Mental Recall; Models, Psychological
PubMed: 25730645
DOI: 10.1037/cep0000035 -
Nature Human Behaviour Jul 2018
Topics: Discrimination Learning; Humans; Learning; Memory Consolidation; Mental Recall; Photic Stimulation; Visual Perception
PubMed: 31097809
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-018-0371-y