Abstract
We used event-related fMRI to investigate whether recollection- and familiarity-based memory judgments are modulated by the degree of visual similarity between old and new art paintings. Subjects performed a flower detection task, followed by a Remember/Know/New surprise memory test. The old paintings were randomly presented with new paintings, which were either visually similar or visually different. Consistent with our prediction, subjects were significantly faster and more accurate to reject new, visually different paintings than new, visually similar ones. The proportion of false alarms, namely remember and know responses to new paintings, was significantly reduced with decreased visual similarity. The retrieval task evoked activation in multiple visual, parietal and prefrontal regions, within which remember judgments elicited stronger activation than know judgments. New, visually different paintings evoked weaker activation than new, visually similar items in the intraparietal sulcus. Contrasting recollection with familiarity revealed activation predominantly within the precuneus, where the BOLD response elicited by recollection peaked significantly earlier than the BOLD response evoked by familiarity judgments. These findings suggest that successful memory retrieval of pictures is mediated by activation in a distributed cortical network, where memory strength is manifested by differential hemodynamic profiles. Recollection- and familiarity-based memory decisions may therefore reflect strong memories and weak memories, respectively.
Highlights
Functional brain imaging studies have shown that medial temporal, parietal and prefrontal cortices are involved in recognition memory of prior episodes (Rugg and Wilding, 2000; Rugg and Yonelinas, 2003)
Some studies suggest that separate cortical networks (Yonelinas et al, 2005) and differential activation in parietal cortex (Vilberg and Rugg, 2007) mediate these two distinct memory processes, whereas other studies suggest that recollection and familiarity reflect differences in the strength of a common memory trace (Donaldson, 1996; Dunn, 2004; Gonsalves et al, 2005; Squire et al, 2007; Wixted, 2007)
We found activation in a distributed cortical network that included face- and object-selective regions in the visual cortex, as well as prefrontal areas where the old paintings evoked stronger activation than the new ones, regardless of their visual similarity
Summary
Functional brain imaging studies have shown that medial temporal, parietal and prefrontal cortices are involved in recognition memory of prior episodes (Rugg and Wilding, 2000; Rugg and Yonelinas, 2003). The functional role that these regions play in memory retrieval, is still debated It is unclear whether recollection, the retrieval of specific information about a past experience, and familiarity, a sense that an event has been previously experienced (Tulving, 1985), are mediated by dissociated neural systems or separate strong memories from weak memories. We found activation in a distributed cortical network that included face- and object-selective regions in the visual cortex, as well as prefrontal areas where the old paintings evoked stronger activation than the new ones, regardless of their visual similarity.
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