The Novel Object and Unusual Name (NOUN) database: a collection of novel images for use in experimental research

Many experimental research designs require images of novel objects. Here we introduce the Novel Object and Unusual Name (NOUN) Database. This database contains 64 primary novel object images and additional novel exemplars for ten basic- and nine global-level object categories. The objects’ novelty was confirmed by both self-report and a lack of consensus on questions that required participants to name and identify the objects. We also found that object novelty correlated with qualifying naming responses pertaining to the objects’ colors. Results from a similarity sorting task (and subsequent multidimensional scaling analysis on the similarity ratings) demonstrated that the objects are complex and distinct entities that vary along several featural dimensions beyond simply shape and color. A final experiment confirmed that additional item exemplars comprise both sub- and superordinate categories. These images may be useful in a variety of settings, particularly for developmental psychology and other research in language, categorization, perception, visual memory and related domains

Emotional arousal modulates oscillatory correlates of targeted memory reactivation during NREM, but not REM sleep

Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is considered to preferentially reprocess emotionally arousing memories. We tested this hypothesis by cueing emotional vs. neutral memories during REM and NREM sleep and wakefulness by presenting associated verbal memory cues after learning. Here we show that cueing during NREM sleep significantly improved memory for emotional pictures, while no cueing benefit was observed during REM sleep. On the oscillatory level, successful memory cueing during NREM sleep resulted in significant increases in theta and spindle oscillations with stronger responses for emotional than neutral memories. In contrast during REM sleep, solely cueing of neutral (but not emotional) memories was associated with increases in theta activity. Our results do not support a preferential role of REM sleep for emotional memories, but rather suggest that emotional arousal modulates memory replay and consolidation processes and their oscillatory correlates during NREM sleep