Priming and Multiple Memory Systems: Perceptual Mechanisms of Implicit Memory

Research examining the relation between explicit and implicit forms of memory has generated a great deal of evidence concerning the issue of multiple memory systems. This article focuses on an extensively studied implicit memory phenomenon, known as direct or repetition priming, and examines the hypothesis that priming effects on various tasks reflect the operation of a perceptual representation system (PRS)—a class of cortically based subsystems that operate at a presemantic level and support non conscious expressions of memory. Three PRS subsystems are examined: visual word form, structural description, and auditory word form. Pertinent cognitive, neuropsychological, and neurobiological evidence is reviewed, alternative classificatory schemes are discussed, and important conceptual and terminological issues are considered.Psycholog

Adaptive constructive processes and the future of memory

Memory serves critical functions in everyday life, but is also prone to error. This article examines adaptive constructive processes, which play a functional role in memory and cognition but can also produce distortions, errors, or illusions. The article describes several types of memory errors that are produced by adaptive constructive processes, and focuses in particular on the process of imagining or simulating events that might occur in one’s personal future. Simulating future events relies on many of the same cognitive and neural processes as remembering past events, which may help to explain why imagination and memory can be easily confused. The article considers both pitfalls and adaptive aspects of future event simulation in the context of research on planning, prediction, problem solving, mind-wandering, prospective and retrospective memory, coping and positivity bias, and the interconnected set of brain regions known as the default network.Psycholog

Memory: from the laboratory to everyday life

One of the key goals of memory research is to develop a basic understanding of the nature and characteristics of memory processes and systems. Another important goal is to develop useful applications of basic research to everyday life. This editorial considers two lines of work that illustrate some of the prospects for applying memory research to everyday life: interpolated quizzing to enhance learning in educational settings, and specificity training to enhance memory and associated functions in individuals who have difficulties remembering details of their past experiences

Memory: sins and virtues

Memory plays an important role in everyday life but does not provide an exact and unchanging record of experience: research has documented that memory is a constructive process that is subject to a variety of errors and distortions. Yet these memory “sins” also reflect the operation of adaptive aspects of memory. Memory can thus be characterized as an adaptive constructive process, which plays a functional role in cognition but produces distortions, errors, or illusions as a consequence of doing so.Psycholog

Constructive memory: past and future

Human memory is not a literal reproduction of the past, but instead relies on constructive processes that are sometimes prone to error and distortion. Understanding of constructive memory has accelerated during recent years as a result of research that has linked together its cognitive and neural bases. This article focuses on three aspects of constructive memory that have been the target of recent research: (i) the idea that certain kinds of memory distortions reflect the operation of adaptive cognitive processes that contribute to the efficient functioning of memory; (ii) the role of a constructive memory system in imagining or simulating possible future events; and (iii) differences between true and false memories that have been revealed by functional neuroimaging techniques. The article delineates the theoretical implications of relevant research, and also considers some clinical and applied implications

Neural mechanisms of reactivation-induced updating that enhance and distort memory

We remember a considerable number of personal experiences because we are frequently reminded of them, a process known as memory reactivation. Although memory reactivation helps to stabilize and update memories, reactivation may also introduce distortions if novel information becomes incorporated with memory. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the neural mechanisms mediating reactivation-induced updating in memory for events experienced during a museum tour. During scanning, participants were shown target photographs to reactivate memories from the museum tour followed by a novel lure photograph from an alternate tour. Later, participants were presented with target and lure photographs and asked to determine whether the photographs showed a stop they visited during the tour. We used a subsequent memory analysis to examine neural recruitment during reactivation that was associated with later true and false memories. We predicted that the quality of reactivation, as determined by online ratings of subjective recollection, would increase subsequent true memories but also facilitate incorporation of the lure photograph, thereby increasing subsequent false memories. The fMRI results revealed that the quality of reactivation modulated subsequent true and false memories via recruitment of left posterior parahippocampal, bilateral retrosplenial, and bilateral posterior inferior parietal cortices. However, the timing of neural recruitment and the way in which memories were reactivated contributed to differences in whether memory reactivation led to distortions or not. These data reveal the neural mechanisms recruited during memory reactivation that modify how memories will be subsequently retrieved, supporting the flexible and dynamic aspects of memory

Get Real: Effects of Repeated Simulation and Emotion on the Perceived Plausibility of Future Experiences

People frequently imagine specific interpersonal experiences that might occur in their futures. The present study used a novel experimental paradigm to examine the influence of repeated simulation of future interpersonal experiences on subjective assessments of plausibility for positive, negative, and neutral events. The results demonstrate that repeated simulation increases estimates of plausibility for emotional, but not neutral, future interpersonal experiences. Additional correlational analyses reveal that increases in plausibility for emotional events are associated with concurrent increases in ease of simulation, event detail, and arousal. Implications for daily life and affective disorders such as depression and anxiety are noted.Psycholog

Memory and law: what can cognitive neuroscience contribute?

A recent decision in the United States by the New Jersey Supreme Court has led to improved jury instructions that incorporate psychological research showing that memory does not operate like a video recording. Here we consider how cognitive neuroscience could contribute to addressing memory in the courtroom. We discuss conditions in which neuroimaging can distinguish true and false memories in the laboratory and note reasons to be skeptical about its use in courtroom cases. We also discuss neuroscience research concerning false and imagined memories, misinformation effects and reconsolidation phenomena that may enhance understanding of why memory does not operate like a video recording.Psycholog

The neural correlates of gist-based true and false recognition

When information is thematically related to previously studied information, gist-based processes contribute to false recognition. Using functional MRI, we examined the neural correlates of gist-based recognition as a function of increasing numbers of studied exemplars. Sixteen participants incidentally encoded small, medium, and large sets of pictures, and we compared the neural response at recognition using parametric modulation analyses. For hits, regions in middle occipital, middle temporal, and posterior parietal cortex linearly modulated their activity according to the number of related encoded items. For false alarms, visual, parietal, and hippocampal regions were modulated as a function of the encoded set size. The present results are consistent with prior work in that the neural regions supporting veridical memory also contribute to false memory for related information. The results also reveal that these regions respond to the degree of relatedness among similar items, and implicate perceptual and constructive processes in gist-based false memory.Psycholog