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Gaze-pattern similarity at encoding may interfere with future memory.

ABSTRACT: Human brains have a remarkable ability to separate streams of visual input into distinct memory-traces. It is unclear, however, how this ability relates to the way these inputs are explored via unique gaze-patterns. Moreover, it is yet unknown how motivation to forget or remember influences the link between gaze similarity and memory. In two experiments, we used a modified directed-forgetting paradigm and either showed blurred versions of the encoded scenes (Experiment 1) or pink noise images (Experiment 2) during attempted memory control. Both experiments demonstrated that higher levels of across-stimulus gaze similarity relate to worse future memory. Although this across-stimulus interference effect was unaffected by motivation, it depended on the perceptual overlap between stimuli and was more pronounced for different scene comparisons, than scene-pink noise comparisons. Intriguingly, these findings echo the pattern similarity effects from the neuroimaging literature and pinpoint a mechanism that could aid the regulation of unwanted memories.

SUBMITTER: Klein Selle N

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8032786 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Gaze-pattern similarity at encoding may interfere with future memory.

Klein Selle Nathalie N Gamer Matthias M Pertzov Yoni Y

Scientific reports 20210408 1

Human brains have a remarkable ability to separate streams of visual input into distinct memory-traces. It is unclear, however, how this ability relates to the way these inputs are explored via unique gaze-patterns. Moreover, it is yet unknown how motivation to forget or remember influences the link between gaze similarity and memory. In two experiments, we used a modified directed-forgetting paradigm and either showed blurred versions of the encoded scenes (Experiment 1) or pink noise images (E ...[more]

PMID: 33833314

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Project description:Age-related memory decline is associated with changes in neural functioning, but little is known about how aging affects the quality of information representation in the brain. Whereas a long-standing hypothesis of the aging literature links cognitive impairments to less distinct neural representations in old age ("neural dedifferentiation"), memory studies have shown that overlapping neural representations of different studied items are beneficial for memory performance. In an electroencephalography (EEG) study, we addressed the question whether distinctiveness or similarity between patterns of neural activity supports memory differentially in younger and older adults. We analyzed between-item neural pattern similarity in 50 younger (19-27 years old) and 63 older (63-75 years old) male and female human adults who repeatedly studied and recalled scene-word associations using a mnemonic imagery strategy. We compared the similarity of spatiotemporal EEG frequency patterns during initial encoding in relation to subsequent recall performance. The within-person association between memory success and pattern similarity differed between age groups: For older adults, better memory performance was linked to higher similarity early in the encoding trials, whereas young adults benefited from lower similarity between earlier and later periods during encoding, which might reflect their better success in forming unique memorable mental images of the joint picture-word pairs. Our results advance the understanding of the representational properties that give rise to subsequent memory, as well as how these properties may change in the course of aging.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Declining memory abilities are one of the most evident limitations for humans when growing older. Despite recent advances of our understanding of how the brain represents and stores information in distributed activation patterns, little is known about how the quality of information representation changes during aging and thus affects memory performance. We investigated how the similarity between neural representations relates to subsequent memory in younger and older adults. We present novel evidence that the interaction of pattern similarity and memory performance differs between age groups: Older adults benefited from higher similarity during early encoding, whereas young adults benefited from lower similarity between early and later encoding. These results provide insights into the nature of memory and age-related memory deficits.

Project description:BackgroundWhile the use of different cognitive strategies when encoding episodic memory information has been extensively investigated, modulation of brain activity by memory self-efficacy beliefs has not been studied yet.Methodology/principal findingsSixteen young adults completed the prospective and retrospective metamemory questionnaire, providing individual subjective judgments of everyday memory function. The day after, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the participants had to memorize real-world intentions (e.g., return a book to the library), which were performed later on in a virtual environment. Participants also performed offline cognitive tasks evaluating executive functions, working memory, and attention. During encoding, activity was found in medial temporal lobe, left prefrontal cortex, medial parietal regions, occipital areas, and regions involved in (pre)motor processes. Based on results from the questionnaire, the group was split into low and high memory self-efficacy believers. Comparison of encoding-related brain activity between the 2 groups revealed that the low memory self-efficacy believers activated more the hippocampus bilaterally, right posterior parahippocampal cortex, precuneus, and left lateral temporal cortex. By contrast, more activity was found in dorsal anterior cingulate gyrus for the high-memory believers. In addition, the low-memory believers performed more poorly at feature binding and (at trend) manipulating visuospatial information in working memory.Conclusion/significanceOverall, these findings indicate that memory self-efficacy beliefs modulate brain activity during intentional encoding. Low memory self-efficacy believers activated more brain areas involved in visuospatial operations such as the hippocampus. Possibly, this increase reflects attempts to compensate for poor performance of certain neurocognitive processes, such as feature binding. By contrast, high-memory believers seemed to rely more on executive-like processes involved in cognitive control.

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Gaze-pattern similarity at encoding may interfere with future memory.

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Gaze-pattern similarity at encoding may interfere with future memory.

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