Abstract
The extent to which time is represented in memory remains underinvestigated. We designed a time paired associate task (TPAT) in which participants implicitly learned cue–time–target associations between cue–target pairs and specific cue–target intervals. During subsequent memory testing, participants showed increased accuracy of identifying matching cue–target pairs if the time interval during testing matched the implicitly learned interval. A control experiment showed that participants had no explicit knowledge about the cue–time associations. We suggest that “elapsed time” can act as a temporal mnemonic associate that can facilitate retrieval of events associated in memory.
Highlights
The extent to which time is represented in memory remains underinvestigated
Recent neurophysiological recordings in rats showed data consistent with the idea that medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures, including the hippocampus, code elapsed time (MacDonald et al 2011). This finding is perhaps related to previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) studies showing that the hippocampus uses temporal proximity to bind discontinuous visual events in memory (Schapiro et al 2012; Hsieh et al 2014)
A similar effect was found when pairs learned with the long CTI were tested with the long (2.5 [0.2]) versus short interval (2.2 [0.2]; t(40) 1⁄4 22.9, P 1⁄4 0.007, Cohen’s d 1⁄4 0.45). These results suggested that participants used knowledge of time to their benefit in recognizing cue– target pairs, such that test trials with congruent cue– target intervals were recognized with higher accuracy than trials with incongruent intervals
Summary
Recent neurophysiological recordings in rats showed data consistent with the idea that medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures, including the hippocampus, code elapsed time (MacDonald et al 2011). This finding is perhaps related to previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) studies showing that the hippocampus uses temporal proximity to bind discontinuous visual events in memory (Schapiro et al 2012; Hsieh et al 2014). We designed a time paired association task (TPAT) in which participants implicitly learned associations between visual events and particular time intervals.
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