RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Lingering representations of stimulus history at encoding influence recall organization
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 068353
DO 10.1101/068353
A1 Stephanie C.Y. Chan
A1 Marissa C. Applegate
A1 Neal W Morton
A1 Sean M. Polyn
A1 Kenneth A. Norman
YR 2016
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/08/11/068353.abstract
AB Several prominent theories posit that information about recent experiences lingers in the brain and organizes memories for current experiences, by forming a temporal context that is linked to those memories at encoding. According to these theories, if the thoughts preceding an experience X resemble the thoughts preceding an experience Y, then X and Y should show an elevated probability of being recalled together. We tested this prediction by using multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) of fMRI data to measure neural evidence for lingering processing of preceding stimuli. As predicted, memories encoded with similar lingering thoughts (about the category of preceding stimuli) were more likely to be recalled together, thereby showing that the “fading embers” of previous stimuli help to organize recall.