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Adults' Performance in an Episodic-Like Memory Task: The Role of Experience

Episodic memory is the ability to consciously recollect personal past events. This type of memory has been tested in non-human animals by using depletion paradigms that assess whether they can remember the “what,” “where,” and “when” (i.e., how long ago) of a past event. An important limitation of t...

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Autores principales: Martin-Ordas, Gema, Atance, Cristina M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6348334/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30719017
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02688
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author Martin-Ordas, Gema
Atance, Cristina M.
author_facet Martin-Ordas, Gema
Atance, Cristina M.
author_sort Martin-Ordas, Gema
collection PubMed
description Episodic memory is the ability to consciously recollect personal past events. This type of memory has been tested in non-human animals by using depletion paradigms that assess whether they can remember the “what,” “where,” and “when” (i.e., how long ago) of a past event. An important limitation of these behavioral paradigms is that they do not clearly identify the cognitive mechanisms (e.g., episodic memory, semantic memory) that underlie task success. Testing adult humans in a depletion paradigm will help to shed light on this issue. In two experiments, we presented university undergraduates with a depletion paradigm which involved choosing one of two food snacks—a preferred but perishable food and a less preferred but non-perishable food–either after a short or a long interval. Whereas, in Experiment 1, participants were asked to imagine the time between hiding the food items and choosing one of them; in Experiment 2 participants experienced the time elapsed between hiding the food items and choosing one of them. In addition, in Experiment 2 participants were presented with 2 trials which allowed us to investigate the role of previous experience in depletion paradigms. Results across both experiments showed that participants chose the preferred and perishable food (popsicle) after the short interval but did not choose the less preferred and non-perishable food (raisins) after the long interval. Crucially, in Experiment 2 experiencing the melted popsicle in Trial l improved participants' performance in Trial 2. We discuss our results in the context of how previous experience affects performance in depletion tasks. We also argue that variations in performance on “episodic-like memory” tasks may be due to different definitions and assessment criteria of the “when” component.
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spelling pubmed-63483342019-02-04 Adults' Performance in an Episodic-Like Memory Task: The Role of Experience Martin-Ordas, Gema Atance, Cristina M. Front Psychol Psychology Episodic memory is the ability to consciously recollect personal past events. This type of memory has been tested in non-human animals by using depletion paradigms that assess whether they can remember the “what,” “where,” and “when” (i.e., how long ago) of a past event. An important limitation of these behavioral paradigms is that they do not clearly identify the cognitive mechanisms (e.g., episodic memory, semantic memory) that underlie task success. Testing adult humans in a depletion paradigm will help to shed light on this issue. In two experiments, we presented university undergraduates with a depletion paradigm which involved choosing one of two food snacks—a preferred but perishable food and a less preferred but non-perishable food–either after a short or a long interval. Whereas, in Experiment 1, participants were asked to imagine the time between hiding the food items and choosing one of them; in Experiment 2 participants experienced the time elapsed between hiding the food items and choosing one of them. In addition, in Experiment 2 participants were presented with 2 trials which allowed us to investigate the role of previous experience in depletion paradigms. Results across both experiments showed that participants chose the preferred and perishable food (popsicle) after the short interval but did not choose the less preferred and non-perishable food (raisins) after the long interval. Crucially, in Experiment 2 experiencing the melted popsicle in Trial l improved participants' performance in Trial 2. We discuss our results in the context of how previous experience affects performance in depletion tasks. We also argue that variations in performance on “episodic-like memory” tasks may be due to different definitions and assessment criteria of the “when” component. Frontiers Media S.A. 2019-01-21 /pmc/articles/PMC6348334/ /pubmed/30719017 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02688 Text en Copyright © 2019 Martin-Ordas and Atance. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Martin-Ordas, Gema
Atance, Cristina M.
Adults' Performance in an Episodic-Like Memory Task: The Role of Experience
title Adults' Performance in an Episodic-Like Memory Task: The Role of Experience
title_full Adults' Performance in an Episodic-Like Memory Task: The Role of Experience
title_fullStr Adults' Performance in an Episodic-Like Memory Task: The Role of Experience
title_full_unstemmed Adults' Performance in an Episodic-Like Memory Task: The Role of Experience
title_short Adults' Performance in an Episodic-Like Memory Task: The Role of Experience
title_sort adults' performance in an episodic-like memory task: the role of experience
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6348334/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30719017
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02688
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