Cargando…

The Associative Structure of Memory for Multi-Element Events

The hippocampus is thought to be an associative memory “convergence zone,” binding together the multimodal elements of an experienced event into a single engram. This predicts a degree of dependency between the retrieval of the different elements comprising an event. We present data from a series of...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Horner, Aidan J., Burgess, Neil
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Psychological Association 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3906803/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23915127
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0033626
_version_ 1782301527920082944
author Horner, Aidan J.
Burgess, Neil
author_facet Horner, Aidan J.
Burgess, Neil
author_sort Horner, Aidan J.
collection PubMed
description The hippocampus is thought to be an associative memory “convergence zone,” binding together the multimodal elements of an experienced event into a single engram. This predicts a degree of dependency between the retrieval of the different elements comprising an event. We present data from a series of studies designed to address this prediction. Participants vividly imagined a series of person–location–object events, and memory for these events was assessed across multiple trials of cued retrieval. Consistent with the prediction, a significant level of dependency was found between the retrieval of different elements from the same event. Furthermore, the level of dependency was sensitive both to retrieval task, with higher dependency during cued recall than cued recognition, and to subjective confidence. We propose a simple model, in which events are stored as multiple pairwise associations between individual event elements, and dependency is captured by a common factor that varies across events. This factor may relate to between-events modulation of the strength of encoding, or to a process of within-event “pattern completion” at retrieval. The model predicts the quantitative pattern of dependency in the data when changes in the level of guessing with retrieval task and confidence are taken into account. Thus, we find direct behavioral support for the idea that memory for complex multimodal events depends on the pairwise associations of their constituent elements and that retrieval of the various elements corresponding to the same event reflects a common factor that varies from event to event.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-3906803
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2013
publisher American Psychological Association
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-39068032014-02-12 The Associative Structure of Memory for Multi-Element Events Horner, Aidan J. Burgess, Neil J Exp Psychol Gen Special Section: Dialogues with Neuroscience The hippocampus is thought to be an associative memory “convergence zone,” binding together the multimodal elements of an experienced event into a single engram. This predicts a degree of dependency between the retrieval of the different elements comprising an event. We present data from a series of studies designed to address this prediction. Participants vividly imagined a series of person–location–object events, and memory for these events was assessed across multiple trials of cued retrieval. Consistent with the prediction, a significant level of dependency was found between the retrieval of different elements from the same event. Furthermore, the level of dependency was sensitive both to retrieval task, with higher dependency during cued recall than cued recognition, and to subjective confidence. We propose a simple model, in which events are stored as multiple pairwise associations between individual event elements, and dependency is captured by a common factor that varies across events. This factor may relate to between-events modulation of the strength of encoding, or to a process of within-event “pattern completion” at retrieval. The model predicts the quantitative pattern of dependency in the data when changes in the level of guessing with retrieval task and confidence are taken into account. Thus, we find direct behavioral support for the idea that memory for complex multimodal events depends on the pairwise associations of their constituent elements and that retrieval of the various elements corresponding to the same event reflects a common factor that varies from event to event. American Psychological Association 2013-08-05 2013-11 /pmc/articles/PMC3906803/ /pubmed/23915127 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0033626 Text en © 2013 the Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article has been published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s). Author(s) grant(s) the American Psychological Association the exclusive right to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher.
spellingShingle Special Section: Dialogues with Neuroscience
Horner, Aidan J.
Burgess, Neil
The Associative Structure of Memory for Multi-Element Events
title The Associative Structure of Memory for Multi-Element Events
title_full The Associative Structure of Memory for Multi-Element Events
title_fullStr The Associative Structure of Memory for Multi-Element Events
title_full_unstemmed The Associative Structure of Memory for Multi-Element Events
title_short The Associative Structure of Memory for Multi-Element Events
title_sort associative structure of memory for multi-element events
topic Special Section: Dialogues with Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3906803/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23915127
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0033626
work_keys_str_mv AT horneraidanj theassociativestructureofmemoryformultielementevents
AT burgessneil theassociativestructureofmemoryformultielementevents
AT horneraidanj associativestructureofmemoryformultielementevents
AT burgessneil associativestructureofmemoryformultielementevents