A multistage retrieval account of associative recognition ROC curves

Despite its name, associative recognition is a paradigm thought to rely on memory recall. However, it remains unclear how associative information may be represented and retrieved from memory and what its relationship to other information, such as item memory, is. Here, we propose a computational model of associative recognition, where relational information is accessed in a generic, multistage retrieval process. The model explains the relative difficulty of associative recognition compared with item recognition, the difference in experimental outcomes when different types of lures are used, as well as the conditions leading to the emergence of associative ROC curves with different shapes.

How Associative Thinking Influences Scene Perception

Perception of our external environment is not isolated from the influence of our internal thoughts. Here, we investigate the nature of their interaction. We argue that a common associative mechanism underlies both the perception of scenes and our internal thoughts, and in three experiments hypothesize that there is a functional advantage to an associative thought pattern in the perception of scenes. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that associative thinking indeed facilitates scene perception, an effect that evolved over the course of the experiments. Experiment 3 showed that associative thinking hinders the perception of individual, isolated objects, in which associative information is minimized, but that object perception is facilitated when associative thinking is reduced. This double dissociation reveals that a match between the orientation of internal and external processing is key for perception, suggesting that an associative mind is more receptive of externally perceived associative information.

EXPRESS: The effect of value on long-term associative memory

Items with high value are often remembered better than those with low value. It is not clear, however, whether this value effect extends to the binding of associative details (e.g., word colour) in episodic memory. Here, we explored whether value enhances memory for associative information in two different scenarios that might support a more effective process of binding between identity and colour. Experiment 1 examined incidental binding between item and colour using coloured images of familiar objects, while Experiment 2 examined intentional learning of word colour. In both experiments, increasing value led to improvements in memory for both item and colour, and these effects persisted after approximately 24 hours. Experiment 3a and Experiment 3b replicated the value effect on intentional word-colour memory from Experiment 2 while also demonstrating this effect to be less reliable when word colour is incidental to the encoding phase. Thus, value-directed prioritization can facilitate episodic associative memory when conditions for binding are optimized through the use of appropriate to-be remembered materials and encoding conditions.

Devaluation-sensitive responding to preconditioned cues requires orbitofrontal cortex during initial cue-cue learning

The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is necessary for value inference in tests of model-based reasoning. This ability could be accounted for by either representation of value or by representation of broader associative structure. Our lab recently reported correlates of both value and of valueless associative structure in OFC using single-unit recording (Sadacca et al., 2018). This incidental stimulus-stimulus representation was surprising since OFC was thought to be involved only when items of biological significance were driving responses. However, we did not assess whether this activity was necessary for encoding the associative information that would contribute to value inference during probe testing. Here, we used optogenetic OFC inhibition during sensory preconditioning to test this. We found that OFC inhibition during preconditioning impaired value inference during the probe test, demonstrating that the correlates we previously observed are not simply downstream readouts of sensory processing and instead contribute to encoding valueless sensory associative information.

Power spectrum and coherence of electroencephalograms of young people with the use of mnemotechnics

The increase of external information and the need for processing of large information arrays has been leading to the search for mechanisms of thinking in mental activity, as well as new methods of data protection and reproduction. Power spectrum and coherence of electroencephalograms (EEG) during memorizing of foreign words has been analyzed in many ways: in the usual one with the help of mnemotechnics. The research was conducted during the ovarian phase of the cycle of 11 female students aged 18–20. Registration of EEG activity was carried out according to the international system of H. Jasper,"10–20". The process of recollection of associative information led to the decrease in the power spectrum of the EEG in the alpha range in the frontal and temporal loci of the left hemisphere and the prefrontal sections of both hemispheres, in the beta range it was probable only in T6 zone of beta2 range, in the delta range it was in the prefrontal, posterior lower-frontal and posttemporal loci of both hemispheres, in the central, parietal and occipital regions of the left hemisphere, as well as in the anteriofrontal zone of the right hemisphere, in the theta-range – in the prefrontal and posterior lower-frontal regions of both hemispheres and in the posttemporal and occipital loci of the left hemisphere. Synchronization in the delta range is the reflection of the processes of figural information processing and manipulation. With the increase of attention concentration, the synchronization was observed in the theta range in the anteriofrontal and F4–P4 zones. Interhemispheric functional and symmetrical bonds in the alpha and beta ranges indicate the involvement of the corpus callosum in the process of memorizing foreign words, which facilitates their faster, more correct and easier reproduction, especially with the use of associative images. The decrease of power spectrum in the delta and theta ranges showed that less effort was required to reproduce associative information than to mention unsupported images of foreign words. The effective use of the association method is realized by reduction of the power spectrum of the waves in the alpha range in the frontal and temporal loci of the left hemisphere and the prefrontal sections of both hemispheres, which indicates the activation of mental activity in these zones in the processes of maintaining and reproducing associative information.

Similarity Leads to Correlated Processing: A Dynamic Model of Encoding and Recognition of Episodic Associations

We present a model of the encoding of episodic associations between items, extending the dynamic approach to retrieval and decision making of Cox and Shiffrin (2017) to the dynamics of encoding. This model is the first unified account of how similarity affects associative encoding and recognition, including why studied pairs consisting of similar items are easier to recognize, why it is easy to reject novel pairs that recombine items that were studied alongside similar items, and why there is an early bias to falsely recognize novel pairs consisting of similar items that is later suppressed (Dosher, 1984; Dosher & Rosedale, 1991). Items are encoded by sampling features into limited-capacity parallel channels in working memory. Associations are encoded by conjoining features across these channels. Because similar items have common features, their channels are correlated which increases the capacity available to encode associative information. The model additionally accounts for data from a new experiment illustrating the importance of similarity for associative encoding across a variety of stimulus types (objects, words, and abstract forms) and types of similarity (perceptual or conceptual), illustrating the generality of the model.

What have labels ever done for us? The linguistic shortcut in conceptual processing

How does language affect cognition? Is it important that most of our concepts come withlinguistic labels, such as car or number? The statistical distributions of how such labels co-occur in language offers a rich medium of associative information that can support conceptual processing in a number of ways. In this article, I argue that the role of language in conceptual processing goes far beyond mere support, and that language is as fundamental and intrinsic a part of conceptual processing as sensorimotor-affective simulations. In particular, because linguistic association tends to be computationally cheaper than simulation (i.e., faster, less effortful, but still information-rich), it enables an heuristic mechanism that can provide adequate conceptual representation without the need to develop a detailed simulation. I review the evidence for this key mechanism – the linguistic shortcut – and propose that it allows labels to sometimes carry the burden of conceptual processing by acting in place of simulated referent meanings, according to context, available resources, and processing goals.