On the sensitivity of event-related potentials to retrieval mode

Angharad N Williams,Edward L Wilding

doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2019.103580

Angharad N Williams, Edward L Wilding

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2019.103580

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Abstract

Event-related potential (ERP) signatures of preparation to retrieve episodic memories have been identified in several studies. A common finding is relatively more positive-going ERP activity over right-frontal sites when people prepare for episodic rather than semantic retrieval. This activity has been linked to the process of retrieval mode – a retrieval set that ensures subsequent events are treated as cues for episodic retrieval. This experiment was designed to test one explanation for why this putative index of retrieval mode was not observed in two recent experiments. Towards this end, ERPs were recorded time-locked to different task-cues indicating which of two retrieval tasks participants should prepare to complete. Each task-cue was followed by a retrieval-cue that required a memory judgment. Departures from the designs of the two studies in which null ERP results were obtained were intra-trial timings and the order in which task cues were presented. Frequentist statistics revealed that ERPs elicited by the task-cues did index preparation to retrieve. The topographies of these activities, however, did not overlap markedly with that of the putative index of retrieval mode reported previously. Bayesian analyses, moreover, provided little compelling evidence for a signature of retrieval mode. These outcomes prompt consideration of how ERP sensitivities to preparatory retrieval processing should be characterized.

Highlights

Tulving (1983) introduced the concept of retrieval mode
Across these different assessments there is no strong evidence that the right-frontal modulation linked to retrieval mode in prior work has been replicated. These outcomes are consistent with those reported earlier by Williams et al (2016). This experiment was designed to develop further an understanding of the conditions under which Event-related potential (ERP) are sensitive to indices of preparatory retrieval processing
The focus was on the process of retrieval mode, which Tulving defined as a cognitive state, entry into which ensures that subsequent events – such as test items on a memory task – modulate episodic retrieval processing (Tulving, 1983)

Summary

Introduction

Tulving (1983) introduced the concept of retrieval mode. He suggested that people enter this mode when preparing to recover episodic memories, and that it can influence memory judgments because it ensures events are treated as cues for episodic retrieval (Wheeler, Stuss, & Tulving, 1997). Candidate brain regions supporting retrieval mode were first identified in position emission tomography (PET) and in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of memory retrieval (Kapur et al, 1995; Lepage, Ghaffar, Nyberg, & Tulving, 2000). This process has been studied using event-related potentials (ERPs), most frequently in designs where neural activity has been measured time-locked to task-cues indicating which kinds of memory judgments people should prepare to make. The difference takes the form of a temporally extended positivity at right-frontal scalp locations when people prepare for episodic rather than semantic retrieval (Düzel et al, 1999, 2001; Herron & Wilding, 2004, 2006a, 2006b; Morcom & Rugg, 2002)

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