scholarly journals Repetition Attenuates the Influence of Recency on Recognition Memory: Behavioral and Electrophysiological Evidence

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
John E. Scofield ◽  
Mason H. Price ◽  
Angélica Flores ◽  
Edgar C. Merkle ◽  
Jeffrey D. Johnson

ABSTRACTStudies of recognition memory often demonstrate a recency effect on behavioral performance, whereby response times (RTs) are faster for stimuli that were previously presented recently as opposed to more remotely in the past. This relationship between performance and presentation lag has been taken to reflect that memories are accessed by serially searching backwards in time, such that RT indicates the self-terminating moment of such a process. Here, we investigated the conditions under which this serial search gives way to more efficient means of retrieving memories. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during a continuous recognition task in which subjects made binary old/new judgments to stimuli that were each presented up to four times across a range of lags. Stimulus repetition and shorter presentation lag both gave rise to speeded RTs, consistent with previous findings, and we novelly extend these effects to a robust latency measure of the left parietal ERP effect associated with retrieval success. Importantly, the relationship between repetition and recency was further elucidated, such that repetition attenuated lag-related differences that were initially present in both the behavioral and neural latency data. These findings are consistent with the idea that a serial search through recent memory can quickly be abandoned in favor of relying on more efficient ‘time-independent’ cognitive processes or neural signals.

2002 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Antony Serfaty ◽  
Robert Bothwell ◽  
Richard Marsh ◽  
Heather Ashton ◽  
Robert Blizard ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Depressed subjects and euthymic controls demonstrate differences in cognitive processing and brain electrophysiology. Contingent negative variation (CNV) and postimperative negative variation (PINV) was used to investigate the relationship between cognition and cortical event related potentials. Method: Electrophysiological responses and memory of different personality trait adjectives were measured in 15 patients with major depressive disorder and 15 euthymic controls. The words were presented acoustically to elicit event-related potentials. The subjects were asked to indicate whether the words were self-referential. Responses were measured separately for self referential and non-self referential, neutral, positively and negatively toned words. Results: Depressed patients chose more negative and fewer positive words as self-referential, though no significant differences between groups in CNV magnitude for any of the words were found. Persistence of cortical negativity after the motor response (PINV) was significantly (P < 0.02) greater in patients for all non-self-referential words, and reaction times were significantly longer for all words. Recall of positive words and recognition of all words were significantly impaired in patients. Conclusions: Both electrophysiological measures and memory tests found differences between depressed patients and controls, suggesting that the PINV wave may be a useful electrophysiological probe to clarify the neurophysiological basis of cognitive processes.


2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 1114-1129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna M. Woollams ◽  
Jason R. Taylor ◽  
Frini Karayanidis ◽  
Richard N. Henson

The relationship between recognition memory and repetition priming remains unclear. Priming is believed to reflect increased processing fluency for previously studied items relative to new items. Manipulations that affect fluency can also affect the likelihood that participants will judge items as studied in recognition tasks. This attribution of fluency to memory has been related to the familiarity process, as distinct from the recollection process, that is assumed by dual-process models of recognition memory. To investigate the time courses and neural sources of fluency, familiarity, and recollection, we conducted an event-related potential (ERP) study of recognition memory using masked priming of test cues and a remember/know paradigm. During the recognition test, studied and unstudied words were preceded by a brief, masked word that was either the same or different. Participants decided quickly whether each item had been studied (“old” or “new”), and for items called old, indicated whether they “remembered” (R) the encoding event, or simply “knew” (K) the item had been studied. Masked priming increased the proportion of K, but not R, judgments. Priming also decreased response times for hits but not correct rejections (CRs). Four distinct ERP effects were found. A medial-frontal FN400 (300–500 msec) was associated with familiarity (R, K Hits > CRs) and a centro-parietal late positivity (500–800 msec) with recollection (R Hits > K Hits, CRs). A long-term repetition effect was found for studied items judged “new” (Misses > CRs) in the same time window as the FN400, but with a posterior distribution. Finally, a centrally distributed masked priming effect was visible between 150 and 250 msec and continued into the 300–500 msec time window, where it was topographically dissociable from the FN400. These results suggest that multiple neural signals are associated with repetition and potentially contribute to recognition memory.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alana Muller ◽  
Lindsey A. Sirianni ◽  
Richard J. Addante

Abstract.The Dunning-Kruger Effect (DKE) is a metacognitive phenomenon of illusory superiority in which individuals who perform poorly on a task believe they performed better than others, yet individuals who performed very well believe they under-performed compared to others. This phenomenon has yet to be directly explored in episodic memory, nor explored for reaction times or physiological correlates. We designed a novel method to elicit the DKE via a test of item recognition while electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. Throughout the task, participants were asked to estimate the percentile in which they performed compared to others. Results revealed participants in the bottom 25th percentile overestimated their percentile, while participants in the top 75th percentile underestimated their percentile, exhibiting the classic DKE. Reaction time measures revealed a condition x group interaction whereby over-estimators responded faster than under-estimators when estimating being in the top percentile and responded slower when estimating being in the bottom percentile.Between-group EEG differences were evident between over-estimators and under-estimators during Dunning-Kruger responses, which revealed FN400-like effects of familiarity supporting differences for over-estimators from 400-600 ms, whereas ‘old-new’ memory ERP effects revealed a late parietal component (LPC) associated with recollection-based processing from 600-900 ms for under-estimators that was not evident for over-estimators. Findings suggest over- and under-estimators use differing cognitive processes when assessing their performance, such that under-estimators rely on recollection during memory and over-estimators draw upon excess familiarity when over-estimating their performance. Episodic memory thus appears to play a contributory role in metacognitive judgments of illusory superiority and inferiority.Graphical AbstractEvent-related potentials (ERPS) were recorded for the Dunning-Kruger Effect as subjects made metacognitive judgments about performance on a memory task. Over- and Under-estimators exhibited a crossover interaction in response times when believing they did best and worst, respectively. A crossover pattern was also observed for ERPs: LPC signals of recollection were found for under-estimators, whereas familiarity-based FN400 effects were evident for over-estimators and correlated with estimates.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 835
Author(s):  
Alexander Rokos ◽  
Richard Mah ◽  
Rober Boshra ◽  
Amabilis Harrison ◽  
Tsee Leng Choy ◽  
...  

A consistent limitation when designing event-related potential paradigms and interpreting results is a lack of consideration of the multivariate factors that affect their elicitation and detection in behaviorally unresponsive individuals. This paper provides a retrospective commentary on three factors that influence the presence and morphology of long-latency event-related potentials—the P3b and N400. We analyze event-related potentials derived from electroencephalographic (EEG) data collected from small groups of healthy youth and healthy elderly to illustrate the effect of paradigm strength and subject age; we analyze ERPs collected from an individual with severe traumatic brain injury to illustrate the effect of stimulus presentation speed. Based on these critical factors, we support that: (1) the strongest paradigms should be used to elicit event-related potentials in unresponsive populations; (2) interpretation of event-related potential results should account for participant age; and (3) speed of stimulus presentation should be slower in unresponsive individuals. The application of these practices when eliciting and recording event-related potentials in unresponsive individuals will help to minimize result interpretation ambiguity, increase confidence in conclusions, and advance the understanding of the relationship between long-latency event-related potentials and states of consciousness.


Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 304
Author(s):  
Kelsey Cnudde ◽  
Sophia van Hees ◽  
Sage Brown ◽  
Gwen van der Wijk ◽  
Penny M. Pexman ◽  
...  

Visual word recognition is a relatively effortless process, but recent research suggests the system involved is malleable, with evidence of increases in behavioural efficiency after prolonged lexical decision task (LDT) performance. However, the extent of neural changes has yet to be characterized in this context. The neural changes that occur could be related to a shift from initially effortful performance that is supported by control-related processing, to efficient task performance that is supported by domain-specific processing. To investigate this, we replicated the British Lexicon Project, and had participants complete 16 h of LDT over several days. We recorded electroencephalography (EEG) at three intervals to track neural change during LDT performance and assessed event-related potentials and brain signal complexity. We found that response times decreased during LDT performance, and there was evidence of neural change through N170, P200, N400, and late positive component (LPC) amplitudes across the EEG sessions, which suggested a shift from control-related to domain-specific processing. We also found widespread complexity decreases alongside localized increases, suggesting that processing became more efficient with specific increases in processing flexibility. Together, these findings suggest that neural processing becomes more efficient and optimized to support prolonged LDT performance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Kristina C. Backer ◽  
Heather Bortfeld

A debate over the past decade has focused on the so-called bilingual advantage—the idea that bilingual and multilingual individuals have enhanced domain-general executive functions, relative to monolinguals, due to competition-induced monitoring of both processing and representation from the task-irrelevant language(s). In this commentary, we consider a recent study by Pot, Keijzer, and de Bot (2018), which focused on the relationship between individual differences in language usage and performance on an executive function task among multilingual older adults. We discuss their approach and findings in light of a more general movement towards embracing complexity in this domain of research, including individuals’ sociocultural context and position in the lifespan. The field increasingly considers interactions between bilingualism/multilingualism and cognition, employing measures of language use well beyond the early dichotomous perspectives on language background. Moreover, new measures of bilingualism and analytical approaches are helping researchers interrogate the complexities of specific processing issues. Indeed, our review of the bilingualism/multilingualism literature confirms the increased appreciation researchers have for the range of factors—beyond whether someone speaks one, two, or more languages—that impact specific cognitive processes. Here, we highlight some of the most salient of these, and incorporate suggestions for a way forward that likewise encompasses neural perspectives on the topic.


2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (10) ◽  
pp. 1753-1761 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera Ferrari ◽  
Maurizio Codispoti ◽  
Rossella Cardinale ◽  
Margaret M. Bradley

Visual attention can be voluntarily oriented to detect target stimuli in order to facilitate goal-directed behaviors. Other visual stimuli capture attention because of motivational significance. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between directed and motivated attention using event-related potentials. Affectively engaging pictures were presented either as target stimuli or as nontargets in a categorization task. Results indicated that both task relevance and emotional significance modulated the late positive potential (LPP) over centro-parietal sensors. Effects of directed and motivated attention on the LPP were additive, with the largest centro-parietal positivity found for emotional pictures that were targets of directed attention, and the least for neutral pictures that were nontargets. Taken together, the data provide new information regarding the relationship between motivated and directed attention, and suggest that the LPP reflects the operation of attentional neural circuits that are utilized by both top-down and bottom-up processes.


2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 204-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thierry Baccino ◽  
Yves Manunta

Abstract. This paper presents a new methodology for studying cognition, which combines eye movements (EM) and event-related potentials (ERP) to track the cognitive processes that occur during a single eye fixation. This technique, called eye-fixation-related potentials (EFRP), has the advantage of coupling accurate time measures from ERPs and the location of the eye on the stimulus, so it can be used to disentangle perceptual/attentional/cognitive factors affecting reading. We tested this new technique to describe the controversial parafoveal-on-foveal effects on reading, which concern the question of whether two consecutive words are processed in parallel or sequentially. The experiment directly addressed this question by looking at whether semantic relatedness on a target word in a reading-like situation might affect the processing of a prime word. Three pair-word conditions were tested: A semantically associated target word (horse-mare), a semantically nonassociated target word (horse-table) and a nonword (horse-twsui); EFRPs were compared for all conditions. The results revealed that early ERP components differentiated word and nonword processing within 119 ms postfixation (N1 component). Moreover, the amplitude of the right centrofrontal P140 varied as a function of word type, being larger in response to nonassociated words than to nonwords. This component might index a spatial attention shift to the target word and its visual categorization, being highly sensitive to orthographic regularity and “ill-formedness” of words. The P2 consecutive component (peaking at 215 ms) differentiated associated words and nonassociated words, which can account for the semantic parafoveal effect. The EFRP technique, therefore, appears to be fruitful for establishing a time-line of early cognitive processes during reading.


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