Abstract
Studies of reality monitoring (RM) often implicate medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in distinguishing internal and external information, a region linked to autism-related deficits in social and self-referential information processing, executive function, and memory. This study used two RM conditions (self-other; perceived-imagined) to investigate RM and metamemory in adults with autism. The autism group showed a deficit in RM, which did not differ across source conditions, and both groups exhibited a self-encoding benefit on recognition and source memory. Metamemory for perceived-imagined information, but not for self-other information, was significantly lower in the autism group. Therefore, reality monitoring and metamemory, sensitive to mPFC function, appear impaired in autism, highlighting a difficulty in remembering and monitoring internal and external details of past events.
Highlights
Reality Monitoring and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC)Episodic memory is the ability to recall details of a specific event, such as temporal, visuo-spatial, and cognitive information (Tulving 1985), while source memory refers to memory for the specific context in which an event was experienced, facilitated by source monitoring processes that evaluate memory characteristics and facilitate the source memory decision (Johnson et al 1993)
The aim of the current study is to investigate the pattern of reality monitoring and metamemory impairments in adults with autism, due to known mPFC dysfunction in this population and the role of this region in reality monitoring and metamemory, to compare the influence of self/social information processing with monitoring and switching between internal and external processes on memory in autism
We assessed the effect of self-referential processing on both recognition and source memory in autism, to test whether difficulties processing information in relation to the self may contribute to memory impairments in autism
Summary
Episodic memory is the ability to recall details of a specific event, such as temporal, visuo-spatial, and cognitive information (Tulving 1985), while source memory refers to memory for the specific context in which an event was experienced, facilitated by source monitoring processes that evaluate memory characteristics and facilitate the source memory decision (Johnson et al 1993). The medial PFC (mPFC) appears to be sensitive to the dissociation between internal and external sources, such as perceived and imagined contexts, compared to other types of source judgements (Brandt et al 2014; Simons et al 2006; Turner et al 2008). A relatively caudal mPFC region showed significantly greater activity during discrimination of selfother relative to perceived-imagined sources, with the latter being associated with more rostral mPFC activity, highlighting functional specialization despite highly overlapping activity associated with source retrieval
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