The missing link? Testing a schema account of unitization.

Unitization refers to the creation of a new unit from previously distinct items. The concept of unitization has been used to explain how novel pairings between items can be remembered without requiring recollection, by virtue of new, item-like representations that enable familiarity-based retrieval. We tested an alternative account of unitization - a schema account - which suggests that associations between items can be rapidly assimilated into a schema. We used a common operationalization of "unitization" as the difference between two unrelated words being linked by a definition, relative to two words being linked by a sentence, during an initial study phase. During the following relearning phase, a studied word was re-paired with a new word, either related or unrelated to the original associate from study. In a final test phase, memory for the relearned associations was tested. We hypothesized that, if unitized representations act like schemas, then we would observe some generalization to related words, such that memory would be better in the definition than sentence condition for related words, but not for unrelated words. Contrary to the schema hypothesis, evidence favored the null hypothesis of no difference between definition and sentence conditions for related words (Experiment 1), even when each cue was associated with multiple associates, indicating that the associations can be generalized (Experiment 2), or when the schematic information was explicitly re-activated during Relearning (Experiment 3). These results suggest that unitized associations do not generalize to accommodate new information, and therefore provide evidence against the schema account

Title TBA: Revising the Abstract Submission Process.

Academic conferences are among the most prolific scientific activities, yet the current abstract submission and review process has serious limitations. We propose a revised process that would address these limitations, achieve some of the aims of Open Science, and stimulate discussion throughout the entire lifecycle of the scientific work

The "Neural Shift" of Sleep Quality and Cognitive Aging: A Resting-State MEG Study of Transient Neural Dynamics.

Sleep quality changes dramatically from young to old age, but its effects on brain dynamics and cognitive functions are not yet fully understood. We tested the hypothesis that a shift in brain networks dynamics relates to sleep quality and cognitive performance across the lifespan. Network dynamics were assessed using Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) in resting-state MEG data from a large cohort of population-based adults (N = 564, aged 18-88). Using multivariate analyses of brain-sleep profiles and brain-cognition profiles, we found an age-related "neural shift," expressed as decreased occurrence of "lower-order" brain networks coupled with increased occurrence of "higher-order" networks. This "neural shift" was associated with both increased sleep dysfunction and decreased fluid intelligence, and this relationship was not explained by age, sex or other covariates. These results establish the link between poor sleep quality, as evident in aging, and a behavior-related shift in neural dynamics

Knowledge is power: Prior knowledge aids memory for both congruent and incongruent events, but in different ways.

Events that conform to our expectations, that is, are congruent with our world knowledge or schemas, are better remembered than unrelated events. Yet events that conflict with schemas can also be remembered better. We examined this apparent paradox in 4 experiments, in which schemas were established by training ordinal relationships between randomly paired objects, whereas event memory was tested for the number of objects on each trial. Better memory was found for both congruent and incongruent trials, relative to unrelated trials, producing memory performance that was a "U-shaped" function of congruency. The congruency advantage but not incongruency advantage was mediated by postencoding processes, whereas the incongruency advantage, but not congruency advantage, emerged even if the information probed by the memory test was irrelevant to the schema. Schemas therefore augment event memory in multiple ways, depending on the match between novel and existing information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)

Bridging the big (data) gap: levels of control in small- and large-scale cognitive neuroscience research

Recently, cognitive neuroscience has experienced unprecedented growth in the availability of large-scale datasets. These developments hold great methodological and theoretical promise: they allow increased statistical power, the use of nonparametric and generative models, the examination of individual differences, and more. Nevertheless, unlike most ‘traditional’ cognitive neuroscience research, which uses controlled experimental designs, large-scale projects often collect neuroimaging data not directly related to a particular task (e.g., resting state). This creates a gap between small- and large-scale studies that is not solely due to differences in sample size. Measures obtained with large-scale studies might tap into different neurocognitive mechanisms and thus show little overlap with the mechanisms probed by small-scale studies. In this opinion article, we aim to address this gap and its potential implications for the interpretation of research findings in cognitive neuroscience

Misrecollection prevents older adults from benefitting from semantic relatedness of the memoranda in associative memory.

Memory for episodic associations declines in aging, ostensibly due to decreased recollection abilities. Accordingly, associative unitization - the encoding of associated items as one integrated entity - may potentially attenuate age-related associative deficits by enabling familiarity-based retrieval, which is relatively preserved in aging. To test this hypothesis, we induced bottom-up unitization by manipulating semantic relatedness between memoranda. Twenty-four young and 24 older adults studied pairs of object pictures that were either semantically related or unrelated. Participants subsequently discriminated between intact, recombined and new pairs. We found that semantic relatedness increased the contributions of both familiarity and recollection in young adults, but did not improve older adults' performance. Instead, they showed associative deficits, driven by increased recollection-based false recognition. This may reflect a "misrecollection" phenomenon, in which older adults make more false alarms to recombined pairs with particularly high confidence, due to poorer retrieval monitoring regarding semantically-related associative probes

Evidence for prereg posters as a platform for preregistration.

Prereg posters are conference posters that present planned scientific projects. We provide preliminary evidence for their value in receiving constructive feedback, promoting open science, and supporting early career researchers

Evidence for prereg posters as a platform for preregistration

Prereg posters are conference posters that present planned scientific projects. We provide preliminary evidence for their value in receiving constructive feedback, promoting open science and supporting early-career researchers