Absence Of Recollection Research Articles

Neural correlates of paired associate recollection: A neuroimaging meta-analysis

Functional neuroimaging data on paired associate recollection have expanded over the years, raising the need for an integrative understanding of the literature. The present study performed a quantitative meta-analysis of the data to fulfill that need. The meta-analysis focused on the three most widely used types of activation contrast: Hit > Miss, Intact > Rearranged, and Memory > Perception. The major results were as follows. First, the Hit > Miss contrast mainly involved regions in the default mode network (DMN)/medial temporal lobe (MTL), likely reflecting a greater amount of retrieved information during the Hit than Miss trials. Second, the Intact > Rearranged contrast mainly involved regions in the DMN/MTL, supporting the view that rejecting recombination foils is based on familiarity with the component parts in the absence of recollection. Third, the Memory > Perception contrast primarily involved regions in the frontoparietal control network, likely reflecting the greater demands on controlled processing during Memory than Perception conditions. Fourth, the subcortical clusters included the amygdala, caudate nucleus/putamen, and mediodorsal thalamus regions, suggesting that these regions are components of the neural circuits supporting associative recollection. Finally, comparisons with previous meta-analyses suggested that associative recollection involves the DMN regions more strongly than source recollection but less strongly than subjective recollection. In conclusion, this study contributes uniquely to the growing literature on paired associate recollection by clarifying the convergent findings and differences among studies.

Memory at the Surface: Colonial Forgetting in Postcolonial France

In this essay I argue the French postcolonial corpus on colonialism, as quantitatively significant as it is, is not only a recollection of the colonial past, but also contains within itself an important dimension of forgetting. For, taking my lead from Henry Rousso and Paul Ricœur, I maintain forgetting is neither a dysfunction of memory nor an absence of recollection; rather, it is a way to reorganize memory. I further maintain such reorganizing of memory is neither accidental nor innocent, but a way to define the political present, to give meaning to specific events, to control their contingencies. Such a definition for the case at hand involves an articulating of a form of postcolonial citizenship whose individuals, because they cannot share our forgetting, cannot share our political present.

Recognition judgments under risk: Low confidence when certainty is low

Prior research has shown that misleading information about memory probes impairs accuracy in recognition memory tests. Such misleading information also impairs confidence in recognition responses, but for correct rejections only, not for hits. It is unknown whether such effects are preserved when participants face different outcomes according to performance. In the current study, after studying a series of words, participants performed a recognition memory task in which each memory probe could be preceded by a cue forecasting probabilistically the probe’s study status (“Likely old” or “Likely new”). Seventy five percent of the cues forecasted accurately the study status of the probes (i.e., valid cues), and 25% inaccurately (i.e., invalid cues). In addition, participants gained or lost points according to whether they made correct or incorrect memory judgments, and received a comestible reward after accumulating 10 of such points. This accumulation scheme was administered in half the study-test blocks. The accuracy/confidence dissociation demonstrated in prior experiments is replicated here. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the decrease in confidence for novel items preceded by invalid cues is accentuated when response accuracy can yield gains or losses. We interpret this confidence decrease for invalidly-cued/rewarded correct rejections as reflecting a combination of loss aversion, as postulated by Prospect theory, and absence of recollection, as postulated by dual process models of recognition.

Severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM) in healthy adults: A new mnemonic syndrome

Recollection of previously experienced events is a key element of human memory that entails recovery of spatial, perceptual, and mental state details. While deficits in this capacity in association with brain disease have serious functional consequences, little is known about individual differences in autobiographical memory (AM) in healthy individuals. Recently, healthy adults with highly superior autobiographical capacities have been identified (e.g., LePort, A.K., Mattfeld, A.T., Dickinson-Anson, H., Fallon, J.H., Stark, C.E., Kruggel, F., McGaugh, J.L., 2012. Behavioral and neuroanatomical investigation of Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM). Neurobiol. Learn. Mem. 98(1), 78–92. doi: 10.1016/j.nlm.2012.05.002). Here we report data from three healthy, high functioning adults with the reverse pattern: lifelong severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM) with otherwise preserved cognitive function. Their self-reported selective inability to vividly recollect personally experienced events from a first-person perspective was corroborated by absence of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and event-related potential (ERP) biomarkers associated with naturalistic and laboratory episodic recollection, as well as by behavioral evidence of impaired episodic retrieval, particularly for visual information. Yet learning and memory were otherwise intact, as long as these tasks could be accomplished by non-episodic processes. Thus these individuals function normally in day-to-day life, even though their past is experienced in the absence of recollection.

Recollection and familiarity for rotated objects

One challenge in recognizing 3D objects is the variability in visual information that they present to our visual system. In order to identify objects in the future, do we store information that generalizes over changes in viewing perspective (view-invariant), or do we instead encode visual information that is specific to a particular viewing experience (view-specific)? When experimenters test this question they normally use a single memory task (e.g., old-new identification), but different memory tasks have been shown to produce distinct patterns of performance with the same perceptual input. Therefore, the process-dissociation procedure was used to get separate estimates of recollection (specific memory for an event) and familiarity (heightened activation of an encountered item in the absence of recollection) for rotated objects in a recognition task. Participants studied sets of familiar objects, with each object in each set presented individually. In a later test, participants were shown old and new objects; for old objects, they also had to try to remember which set the object had been presented in. This method enables independent estimates to be gained for recollection (remembering the set in which the object was presented) and familiarity (knowing the object was presented but lacking knowledge of the set it was presented in). These measures showed that recollection was better when the test view matched the studied view (or showed a very similar visual appearance), but that familiarity was viewpoint invariant. As such, these results suggest that the visual system encodes information about objects that can be utilized in different ways by different memory systems, depending upon the specific requirements of a given task. Further, they suggest that the "viewpoint debate" between view-specific and view-invariant models is intractable, because both patterns of data are found with the same set of objects across different memory measures. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2012

Levels of processing influences both recollection and familiarity: Evidence from a modified remember–know paradigm

A modified Remember/Know (RK) paradigm was used to investigate reported subjective awareness during retrieval. Levels of processing (shallow vs. deep) was manipulated at study. Word pairs (old/new or new/new) were presented during test trials, and participants were instructed to respond "remember" if they recollected one of the two words, "know" if the word was familiar in the absence of recollection, or "new" if they judged both words to be new. Participants were then required to indicate which of the 2 words was old (2AFC recognition). With the standard RK proportions, deeper processing at study increased remember proportions and decreased know proportions, but this dissociation was not shown with the 2AFC proportion correct measure which instead demonstrated robust LOP effects for both remember and know trials, suggesting that the know proportion measure severely distorts the nature of LOP effects on familiarity.

Impaired capacity for familiarity after hippocampal damage

Recognition memory is thought to consist of two components: recollection and familiarity. Whereas it is widely agreed that the hippocampus supports recollection (remembering the episode in which an item was learned), there is uncertainty about whether it also supports familiarity (simply knowing that an item was encountered but without remembering the learning episode). We tested a counterintuitive prediction that follows from the idea that the hippocampus selectively supports recollection. Patients with hippocampal lesions should have strong experiences of familiarity as often as controls do; however, unlike controls, these experiences should not be accompanied by recollection. Accordingly, with methods that allow participants to report whether they remember an item as encountered previously or whether they simply know it is familiar, patients should express strong familiarity (in the absence of recollection) more often than controls. We indexed strong familiarity and recollection for previously studied words by obtaining confidence ratings together with Remember-Know judgments. The result was that patients provided fewer high-confidence Know responses than controls rather than more. Furthermore, the number of Know responses made by patients was substantially less than was predicted if recollection were impaired. This was true regardless of whether the prediction was based on the assumption that recollection and familiarity are independent or dependent processes. These results suggest that hippocampal lesions impair both recollection and familiarity. Unlike many previous studies of these constructs, the prediction (and the result) is independent of any particular theoretical model, and it holds even if Remember-Know judgments are not process-pure indicators of recollection and familiarity.

Using stimulus form change to understand memorial familiarity for pictures and words in patients with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease

Although it is generally accepted that patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) have significantly impaired recollection, recent evidence has been mixed as to whether these patients demonstrate impaired memorial familiarity. Recent work suggests that familiarity may remain intact for pictures, but not for words. Further, a recent event-related potential (ERP) study suggests that enhanced conceptual processing of pictures may underlie this intact familiarity. However, to date there has been no direct comparison of perceptual and conceptual-based familiarity for pictures and words in patients with aMCI and AD. To investigate this issue, patients with aMCI, patients with AD, and healthy older adults underwent four study-test conditions of word–word, picture–picture, word–picture, and picture–word. When stimuli undergo form change, it has been suggested that only conceptual processing can help support recognition in the absence of recollection. Our results showed that patients successfully relied on perceptual and conceptual-based familiarity to improve recognition for the within format conditions over the across format conditions. Further, results suggested that patients with aMCI and AD are able to use enhanced conceptual processing of pictures compared to words to allow them to overcome the deleterious effects of form change in a similar manner as controls. These results help us begin to understand which aspects of memory are impaired and which remain relatively intact in patients with aMCI and AD. This understanding can then in turn help us to assess, conceptualize, and build behavioral interventions to help treat these patients.

A demonstration that the hippocampus supports both recollection and familiarity

Recognition memory is thought to depend on two distinct processes: recollection and familiarity. There is debate as to whether damage to the hippocampus selectively impairs recollection or whether it impairs both recollection and familiarity. If hippocampal damage selectively impairs recollection but leaves familiarity intact, then patients with circumscribed hippocampal lesions should exhibit the full normal range of low-confidence and high-confidence familiarity-based recognition. High-confidence, familiarity-based decisions are ordinarily accompanied by successful recollection (when memory is intact). However, patients with hippocampal lesions, if recollection is impaired, should frequently experience high-confidence, familiarity-based recognition in the absence of recollection, and this circumstance (termed the "butcher-on-the-bus" phenomenon) should occur more often in patients than in healthy controls. We tested five patients with circumscribed hippocampal damage, asking them to recognize recently studied words as well as to remember the context in which the items were studied. Relative to controls, the patients exhibited no increased tendency to experience the butcher-on-the-bus phenomenon. The simplest explanation of the results is that hippocampal damage impairs familiarity as well as recollection. The same conclusion was suggested when two competing models of recognition memory were used to analyze the data.

Phenomenological reports diagnose accuracy of eyewitness identification decisions

This study investigated whether measuring the phenomenology of eyewitness identification decisions aids evaluation of their accuracy. Witnesses (N=502) viewed a simulated crime and attempted to identify two targets from lineups. A divided attention manipulation during encoding reduced the rate of remember (R) correct identifications, but not the rates of R foil identifications or know (K) judgments in the absence of recollection (i.e., K/[1-R]). Both RK judgments and recollection ratings (a novel measure of graded recollection) distinguished correct from incorrect positive identifications. However, only recollection ratings improved accuracy evaluation after identification confidence was taken into account. These results provide evidence that RK judgments for identification decisions function in a similar way as for recognition decisions; are consistent with the notion of graded recollection; and indicate that measures of phenomenology can enhance the evaluation of identification accuracy.

Examining the neural basis of episodic memory: ERP evidence that faces are recollected differently from names

Episodic memory is supported by recollection, the conscious retrieval of contextual information associated with the encoding of a stimulus. Event-Related Potential (ERP) studies of episodic memory have identified a robust neural correlate of recollection--the left parietal old/new effect--that has been widely observed during recognition memory tests. This left parietal old/new effect is believed to provide an index of generic cognitive operations related to recollection; however, it has recently been suggested that the neural correlate of recollection observed when faces are used as retrieval cues has an anterior scalp distribution, raising the possibility that faces are recollected differently from other types of information. To investigate this possibility, we directly compared neural activity associated with remember responses for correctly recognized face and name retrieval cues. Compound face-name stimuli were studied, and at test either a face or a name was presented alone. Participants discriminated studied from unstudied stimuli, and made a remember/familiar decision for stimuli judged 'old'. Remembering faces was associated with anterior (500-700 ms) and late right frontal old/new effects (700-900 ms), whereas remembering names elicited mid frontal (300-500 ms) and left parietal (500-700 ms) effects. These findings demonstrate that when directly compared, with reference to common episodes, distinct cognitive operations are associated with remembering faces and names. We discuss whether faces can be remembered in the absence of recollection, or whether there may be more than one way of retrieving episodic context.

Electromagnetic Correlates of Recognition Memory Processes

Recognition memory is critically dependent on a hierarchically organized network of brain areas including the visual ventral stream, medial temporal lobe structures, frontal and parietal cortices. In recent years, cognitive theories of recognition memory have been helpful to further our understanding of the functional organization of this network. A prominent, although not unchallenged, set of theories proposes that recognition memory is not a unitary phenomenon, but can be based on the recollection of contextual information about events or on familiarity in the absence of recollection. A number of hemodynamic and electromagnetic studies have been undertaken to relate recollection and familiarity to neuronal substrates both in healthy subjects as well as in patients with brain lesions. Today, it is evident that both event-related potential and event-related field (ERP/ERF) data as well as data of oscillatory brain activity (e.g., theta oscillations) are necessary to fully understand the neural dynamics of recollection and familiarity and their relationship to functional anatomy. Ultimately, such data are required from patients with isolated brain injuries to designated components of the networks (such as the hippocampus) to obtain converging evidence for functional relationships between recollection and familiarity and respective neuroanatomic substrates. The complexity of this task is highlighted by findings indicating that recognition memory can already be affected by preparatory processes prior to stimulus onset.

Prefrontal and hippocampal contributions to visual associative recognition: Interactions between cognitive control and episodic retrieval

The ability to recover episodic associations is thought to depend on medial–temporal lobe mnemonic mechanisms and frontal lobe cognitive control processes. The present study examined the neural circuitry underlying non-verbal associative retrieval, and considered the consequences of successful retrieval on cognitive control demands. Event-related fMRI data were acquired while subjects retrieved strongly or weakly associated pairs of novel visual patterns in a two-alternative forced choice associative recognition paradigm. Behaviorally, successful retrieval of strongly associated relative to weakly associated pairs was more likely to be accompanied by conscious recollection of the pair’s prior co-occurrence. At the neural level, right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) and hippocampus were more active during successful retrieval of Strong than of Weak associations, consistent with a role in visual associative recollection. By contrast, Weak trials elicited greater activation in right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which may detect conflict between the similarly familiar target and foil stimuli in the absence of recollection. Consistent with this interpretation, stronger ACC activity was associated with weaker hippocampal and stronger right dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC) responses. Thus, recollection of relevant visual associations (hippocampus and VLPFC) results in lower levels of mnemonic conflict (ACC) and decreased familiarity-based monitoring demands (DLPFC). These findings highlight the interplay between cognitive control and episodic retrieval.

The distinctiveness effect in the absence of conscious recollection: Evidence from conceptual priming

We tested whether the distinctiveness effect in memory (superior memory for isolated or unusual items) only occurs with conscious recollection or could emerge with recapitulation of the type of processing that occurred at study even in the absence of recollection at test. Participants studied lists of categorically isolated exemplars. In Experiment 1, participants received either an explicit or an implicit test of category verification. We hypothesized that this task would recapitulate the evaluative processing from study. Results showed better explicit category cued recognition as well as greater priming for isolated items than nonisolated items on a category verification test. The latter outcome suggests that the distinctiveness effect can occur in the absence of conscious recollection. In Experiment 2, we sought converging evidence for our hypothesis that reinstating the evaluative process is critical for obtaining the effect on the implicit test; we used another conceptual implicit memory test (category production) that contained matching test cues but did not require evaluative processing. The absence of a distinctiveness effect on this measure in conjunction with its presence on the implicit category verification measure suggests that evaluative processing mediates the distinctiveness effect.

Difficulté d’intubation imprévue mais prévisible

We report a case of two consecutive episodes of difficult intubation in a patient with an endotracheal Dumon’s prosthesis inserted two years before. Despite several preanaesthetic visits and ENT examination, the absence of recollection by the patient and the lack of information in her previous medical records led to the impossibility to introduce a normal tube into her trachea during two consecutive anaesthetic procedures. This case points out the limits of preanaesthetic visits. It allows to remind special measures that must be taken in patients having tracheal prosthesis and scheduled for anaesthesia and surgery.

Theta synchronization during episodic retrieval: neural correlates of conscious awareness

The neural correlates of conscious awareness during successful memory retrieval were examined. In a recognition test, subjects indicated whether they consciously recollected the event in which a word was earlier presented (Remembering), or whether they recognized it on the basis that it was familiar in the absence of recollection (Knowing). An early EEG synchronization in the theta band predicted knowing, and a later remembering. Moreover, early and late event-related potentials were also found to predict knowing and remembering, respectively. The results indicate that the temporal dynamics of theta synchronization are related to the particular conscious experiences associated with memory retrieval.

Feature and Conjunction Errors in Recognition Memory: Evidence for Dual-Process Theory

Feature and conjunction errors in recognition memory were investigated using a dual-process framework. In Experiment 1, dividing attention at study or test decreased old word recognition but did not influence feature and conjunction recognition errors after correcting for false alarms to new words (baseline). In Experiment 2, a response deadline manipulation influenced old word recognition but not feature and conjunction effects (i.e., feature or conjunction error rate minus baseline). Across Experiments 3 and 4, study repetitions increased the probabilities of feature and conjunction errors for participants under strong pressure to respond quickly. However, no such increases were observed for participants who were given more time to respond, providing evidence that the familiarity underlying feature and conjunction errors can be countered with recollection. Thus study repetition increased both familiarity and recollection. Feature and conjunction errors are based on familiarity in the absence of recollection. An approach that combines an item-associative distinction with a dual-process framework (e.g., Yonelinas, 1997) also can account for these errors. However, an approach that uses a feature-configuration distinction must be modified to account for these results.

Recollection and Familiarity in Recognition Memory: An Event-Related Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

The question of whether recognition memory judgments with and without recollection reflect dissociable patterns of brain activity is unresolved. We used event-related, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of 12 healthy volunteers to measure hemodynamic responses associated with both studying and recognizing words. Volunteers made one of three judgments to each word during recognition: whether they recollected seeing it during study (R judgments), whether they experienced a feeling of familiarity in the absence of recollection (K judgments), or whether they did not remember seeing it during study (N judgments). Both R and K judgments for studied words were associated with enhanced responses in left prefrontal and left parietal cortices relative to N judgments for unstudied words. The opposite pattern was observed in bilateral temporoccipital regions and amygdalae. R judgments for studied words were associated with enhanced responses in anterior left prefrontal, left parietal, and posterior cingulate regions relative to K judgments. At study, a posterior left prefrontal region exhibited an enhanced response to words subsequently given R versus K judgments, but the response of this region during recognition did not differentiate R and K judgments. K judgments for studied words were associated with enhanced responses in right lateral and medial prefrontal cortex relative to both R judgments for studied words and N judgments for unstudied words, a difference we attribute to greater monitoring demands when memory judgments are less certain. These results suggest that the responses of different brain regions do dissociate according to the phenomenology associated with memory retrieval.

Repetition of previously novel melodies sometimes increases both remember and know responses in recognition memory

Recognition memory for previously novel melodies was tested in three experiments in which subjects usedremember andknow responses to report experiences of recollection, or of familiarity in the absence of recollection, for each melody they recognized. Some of the melodies were taken from Polish folk songs and presented vocally, but without the words. Others were taken from obscure pieces of classical music, presented as single-line melodies. Prior to the test, the melodies were repeated for varying numbers of study trials. Repetition of the Polish melodies increased both remember and know responses, while repetition of classical melodies increased remember but not know responses. When subjects were instructed to report guesses, guess responses were inversely related to remember and know responses and there were more guesses to lures than to targets. These findings establish that remembering and knowing are fully independent functionally and, by the same token, they provide further evidence against the idea that response exclusivity causes increases in remembering to force decreases in knowing. The findings also suggest that simultaneous increases in remembering and knowing occurred because the Polish melodies came from a genre for which the subjects had relatively little previous experience.

How level of processing really influences awareness in recognition memory.

Abstract In yes/no and two - alternative forced - choice recognition tests, subjects reported one of three states of awareness when selecting each target: remembering, knowing, or guessing. A remember response indicated recollection of the target's occurrence in the study list. A know response indicated the target was familiar in the experimental context but not recollected. A guess response indicated the target was selected in the absence of either remembering or knowing. In Experiments 1 and 2, level of processing influenced remember responses but not know responses and, in Experiment 3, generating versus reading similarly influenced remember but not know responses. In each experiment, when subjects reported that they were guessing they showed no ability to discriminate targets from lures. These results show that remember/know findings generalize from yes/no to two - alternative forced - choice recognition and that knowing is dissociable from guessing. The results also provide no support for the hypothesis, based on an independence model of remembering and knowing, and some other apparently contradictory results, that variables that have large effects on remembering produce opposite effects on knowing. A meta - analysis of previous level - of - processing studies yielded evidence consistent with these conclusions. In recent studies we have been developing an experiential approach to memory and awareness (Gardiner & Java, 1993a, 1993b; Java, 1994; Richardson - Klavehn & Gardiner, 1995a; Richardson - Klavehn, Gardiner, & Java, 1994, 1996). The essence of this approach is that objective measures of performance are supplemented by subjective reports of states of awareness. Put another way, third - person accounts of memory and awareness are supplemented by first - person accounts (see Velmans, 1991). This approach allows inferences theorists make indirectly about subjective states of awareness to be checked directly against subjective reports about these states of awareness, and so it raises the rather general problem of how third - person and first - person accounts of memory and awareness are to be reconciled. At its most fundamental, this problem concerns relations between (1) hypothetical constructs used in theory, such as memory systems and processes; (2) memory performance; and (3) awareness, especially subjects' awareness of what they are trying to do to meet the demands of the tasks they are given, and their awareness of memory for the particular items they may encounter when carrying out such tasks (Gardiner & Java, 1993a, 1993b; Richardson - Klavehn et al., 1996). Where recognition memory is concerned, subjects' awareness of memory for particular items they may encounter includes at least two discrete states: recollection, and feelings of familiarity in the absence of recollection. These states of awareness have been measured by remember and know responses (Gardiner, 1988; Tulving, 1985a), which have revealed many functional dissociations within overall recognition memory performance (for reviews, see Gardiner & Java, 1993a, 1993b; Rajaram & Roediger, in press; Richardson - Klavehn et al., 1996). In Tulving's (1983, 1985a, 1985b) theory, remembering and knowing are associated respectively with retrieval from episodic and semantic memory systems, and it is assumed that the relation between these systems is one of inclusivity (or redundancy), in the sense that representation in the episodic system necessarily entails representation in the semantic system, but not vice versa. Remember and know responses are defined exclusively, but at the level of the responses the difference between exclusivity and inclusivity is only a matter of definition. In each case, know responses would be defined as familiarity in the absence of recollection, and, with inclusivity, remember responses would be defined as recollection and familiarity, not just recollection. But subjects would still experience the same two states of awareness, regardless of whether the responses define these states as having an inclusive or an exclusive relation. …