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Abstract
Evidence from neuropsychology and neuroimaging indicate that the pre-frontal cortex (PFC) plays an important role in human memory. Although frontal patients are able to form new memories, these memories appear qualitatively different from those of controls by lacking distinctiveness. Neuroimaging studies of memory indicate activation in the PFC under deep encoding conditions, and under conditions of semantic elaboration. Based on these results, we hypothesize that the PFC enhances memory by extracting differences and commonalities in the studied material. To test this hypothesis, we carried out an experimental investigation to test the relationship between the PFC-dependent factors and semantic factors associated with common and specific features of words. These experiments were performed using Free-Recall of word lists with healthy adults, exploiting the correlation between PFC function and fluid intelligence. As predicted, a correlation was found between fluid intelligence and the Von-Restorff effect (better memory for semantic isolates, e.g., isolate “cat” within category members of “fruit”). Moreover, memory for the semantic isolate was found to depend on the isolate's serial position. The isolate item tends to be recalled first, in comparison to non-isolates, suggesting that the process interacts with short term memory. These results are captured within a computational model of free recall, which includes a PFC mechanism that is sensitive to both commonality and distinctiveness, sustaining a trade-off between the two.
Highlights
Free recall of word lists is a central experimental paradigm that has driven research on the nature of memory encoding and retrieval processes and their neural substrate (Craik and Lockhart, 1972; Tulving et al, 1994; for a review, see Davelaar and Raaijmakers, 2012)
The Von Restorff paradigm was explored in this paper using both experiments and computational modeling
A large body of evidence exists for the role of the frontal cortex in these functions, including the correlations presented between sensitivity to novelty and fluid intelligence
Summary
Free recall of word lists is a central experimental paradigm that has driven research on the nature of memory encoding and retrieval processes and their neural substrate (Craik and Lockhart, 1972; Tulving et al, 1994; for a review, see Davelaar and Raaijmakers, 2012). Many studies have demonstrated enhanced memorability for semantically related words (e.g., Glanzer and Schwartz, 1971; Greene and Crowder, 1984; Davelaar et al, 2006), and others have shown that semantic clustering takes place spontaneously in the free-recall of categorized lists (Bousfield, 1953). In two different studies using CVLT (Baldo et al, 2002; Alexander et al, 2003) frontal lobe patients showed semantic clustering well below healthy control participants. Ageing has many shared deficits with frontal lobe impairments, and it was suggested that frontal cortex decline in elderly people is responsible for these impairments (for a detailed list: Haarmann et al, 2005)
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