Event-Related Potentials and Recognition Memory For Pictures and Words: The Effects of Intentional and Incidental Learning

Decisions regarding whether an item has been previously encountered are typically accompanied by one of two distinct forms of subjective awareness: either a general sense of familiarity, or conscious recollection of specific details from a prior study episode. To examine the neurophysiological concomitants of these different types of internal experience, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while subjects engaged in a modified recognition memory procedure that required them to describe their subjective response during each testtrial. Stimuli that evoked recollection were accompanied by waveforms distinct from those that evoked only a sense of familiarity, and waveforms for both categories of correctly classified old items differed from correctly rejected distractor items and incorrectly classified (missed) studied items. These ERP responses are interpreted with respect to current knowledge concerning the neural structures and processes intimately involved in the capacity to engage in recollection.

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Young infants' event-related potentials (ERPs) to familiar and unfamiliar visual and auditory events in a recognition memory task

Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology ◽

10.1016/0013-4694(81)90023-7 ◽

1981 ◽

Vol 52 (5) ◽

pp. 405-417 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Martin J Hofmann ◽

Philip Salapatek

Keyword(s):

Recognition Memory ◽

Memory Task ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Recognition Memory Task ◽

Young Infants ◽

Related Potentials

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Paradigms for Recording Cognitive Brain Electrical Activity

Methods of Information in Medicine ◽

10.1055/s-0038-1634154 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 40 (03) ◽

pp. 184-189

Author(s):

H. G. McAllister ◽

R. Howard ◽

L. Hong Neo ◽

P. J. McCullagh

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Processing ◽

Brain Function ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Multimedia Technology ◽

Auditory Oddball ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Pictures And Words ◽

Comparative Processing ◽

External Stimuli ◽

Abnormal Brain

Abstract:Human event-related potentials reflect cognitive processing, and are normally elicited by external events, such as acoustic sounds or visual stimuli. As such they provide an opportunity to study normal and abnormal brain function noninvasively, at sub-second resolution. Advances in multimedia technology permit specialists in informatics and neuropsychology to co-operate in the design and implementation of paradigms, which influence ERP components. The paper illustrates the progression from standard paradigms such as the auditory oddball, which can be used to study memory update through to contingent negative variation and three condition, visual paradigms which can be used to study cognitive and emotional responses. Data from a study investigating the comparative processing of target pictures and words illustrate how external stimuli influence the later cognitive potentials.

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