Information In Long-term Memory Research Articles

The Association between Physical Activity During the Day and Long-Term Memory Stability.

Despite positive associations between chronic physical activity and memory; we have little understanding of how best to incorporate physical activity during the day to facilitate the consolidation of information into memory, nor even how time spent physically active during the day relates to memory processes. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the relation between physical activity during the day and long-term memory. Ninety-two young adults learned a list of paired-associate items and were tested on the items after a 12-hour interval during which heart rate was recorded continuously. Although the percentage of time spent active during the day was unrelated to memory, two critical physical activity periods were identified as relating to the maintenance of long-term memory. Engaging in physical activity during the period 1 to 2-hours following the encoding of information was observed to be detrimental to the maintenance of information in long-term memory. In contrast, physical activity during the period 1-hour prior to memory retrieval was associated with superior memory performance, likely due to enhanced retrieval processing. These findings provide initial evidence to suggest that long-term memory may be enhanced by more carefully attending to the relative timing of physical activity incorporated during the day.

Do Baseline Executive Functions Mediate Prospective Memory Performance under a Moderate Dose of Alcohol?

Prospective memory (PM) is memory for delayed intentions. While deleterious effects of acute doses of alcohol on PM have been documented previously using between-subjects comparisons, the current study adopted a single blind placebo-controlled within-subjects design to explore whether the extent to which alcohol-related impairments in PM are mediated by executive functions (EFs). To this end, 52 male social drinkers with no history of substance-related treatment were tested using two parallel versions of a clinical measure of PM (the Memory for Intentions Test; Raskin et al., 2010), and a battery of EF measures. Testing took place on two occasions, with the order of administration of the alcohol and placebo conditions being fully counterbalanced. Overall, PM was worse under alcohol and participants showed deficits on five of the six subscales making up the clinical test. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses demonstrated that EFs did not predict PM performance decrements overall but did predict performance when time cues were presented and when verbal responses were required. Phonemic fluency was the strongest of the EF predictors; a greater capacity to gain controlled access to information in long-term memory predicted a smaller difference between placebo- and alcohol-related performance on both the time cue and verbal response scales. PM is crucial to compliance with, and response to, both therapy programs and alcohol harm prevention campaigns. The results indicate that individual differences in cognitive function need to be taken into account when designing such interventions in order to increase their effectiveness.

Spaced learning and innovative teaching: school time, pedagogy of attention and learning awareness

AbstractCurrently, the ‘time’ variable has taken on the function of instructional and pedagogical innovation catalyst, after representing-over the years-a symbol of democratisation, learning opportunity and instruction quality, able to incorporate themes such as school dropout, personalisation and vocation into learning. Spaced Learning is a teaching methodology useful to quickly seize information in long-term memory based on a particular arrangement of the lesson time that comprises three input sessions and two intervals. Herein we refer to a teachers’ training initiative on Spaced Learning within the programme ‘DocentiInFormAzione’ in the EDOC@WORK3.0 Project in Apulia region in 2015. The training experience aimed at increasing teachers’ competencies in the Spaced Learning method implemented in a context of collaborative reflection and reciprocal enrichment. The intent of the article is to show how a process of rooting of the same culture of innovation, which opens to the discovery (or rediscovery) of effective teaching practices sustained by scientific evidences, can be successfully implemented and to understand how or whether this innovation- based on the particular organisation of instructional time-links learning awareness to learning outcomes.

Incidental biasing of attention from visual long-term memory.

Holding recently experienced information in mind can help us achieve our current goals. However, such immediate and direct forms of guidance from working memory are less helpful over extended delays or when other related information in long-term memory is useful for reaching these goals. Here we show that information that was encoded in the past but is no longer present or relevant to the task also guides attention. We examined this by associating multiple unique features with novel shapes in visual long-term memory (VLTM), and subsequently testing how memories for these objects biased the deployment of attention. In Experiment 1, VLTM for associated features guided visual search for the shapes, even when these features had never been task-relevant. In Experiment 2, associated features captured attention when presented in isolation during a secondary task that was completely unrelated to the shapes. These findings suggest that long-term memory enables a durable and automatic type of memory-based attentional control. (PsycINFO Database Record

Interaction of Number Magnitude and Auditory Localization.

The interplay of perception and memory is very evident when we perceive and then recognize familiar stimuli. Conversely, information in long-term memory may also influence how a stimulus is perceived. Prior work on number cognition in the visual modality has shown that in Western number systems long-term memory for the magnitude of smaller numbers can influence performance involving the left side of space, while larger numbers have an influence toward the right. Here, we investigated in the auditory modality whether a related effect may bias the perception of sound location. Subjects (n = 28) used a swivel pointer to localize noise bursts presented from various azimuth positions. The noise bursts were preceded by a spoken number (1-9) or, as a nonsemantic control condition, numbers that were played in reverse. The relative constant error in noise localization (forward minus reversed speech) indicated a systematic shift in localization toward more central locations when the number was smaller and toward more peripheral positions when the preceding number magnitude was larger. These findings do not support the traditional left-right number mapping. Instead, the results may reflect an overlap between codes for number magnitude and codes for sound location as implemented by two channel models of sound localization, or possibly a categorical mapping stage of small versus large magnitudes.

Activating learned exemplars in children impairs memory for related exemplars in visual long-term memory

A popular educational method when teaching children new information is encouraging children to activate previously learned information held in long-term memory. A potential downside of this practice is the considerable evidence that there are negative consequences of accessing long-term memory representations. Specifically, it has been shown that accessing information in long-term memory can actually impair related memories. This impairment has classically been demonstrated with verbal material (i.e., retrieval-induced forgetting) and more recently with visual material in adults (i.e., recognition-induced forgetting). The goal of the present study was to examine whether recognition-induced forgetting exists in visual long-term memory for children aged 6–10 years old, the age at which retrieval-induced forgetting appears to emerge. To this end, we presented children with an abbreviated, age-appropriate recognition-induced forgetting paradigm. If children suffer recognition-induced forgetting, practicing a subset of objects from a category of objects will impair memory for the other, non-practiced objects from the same category. The results showed that children across all ages showed impaired memory for non-practiced objects from practiced categories and no benefit from recognition practice for the younger children. These findings show that children's visual long-term memory is vulnerable to recognition-induced forgetting and does not appear to benefit from recognition practice.

Beta oscillations reflect memory and motor aspects of spoken word production.

Two major components form the basis of spoken word production: the access of conceptual and lexical/phonological information in long-term memory, and motor preparation and execution of an articulatory program. Whereas the motor aspects of word production have been well characterized as reflected in alpha-beta desynchronization, the memory aspects have remained poorly understood. Using magnetoencephalography, we investigated the neurophysiological signature of not only motor but also memory aspects of spoken-word production. Participants named or judged pictures after reading sentences. To probe the involvement of the memory component, we manipulated sentence context. Sentence contexts were either constraining or nonconstraining toward the final word, presented as a picture. In the judgment task, participants indicated with a left-hand button press whether the picture was expected given the sentence. In the naming task, they named the picture. Naming and judgment were faster with constraining than nonconstraining contexts. Alpha-beta desynchronization was found for constraining relative to nonconstraining contexts pre-picture presentation. For the judgment task, beta desynchronization was observed in left posterior brain areas associated with conceptual processing and in right motor cortex. For the naming task, in addition to the same left posterior brain areas, beta desynchronization was found in left anterior and posterior temporal cortex (associated with memory aspects), left inferior frontal cortex, and bilateral ventral premotor cortex (associated with motor aspects). These results suggest that memory and motor components of spoken word production are reflected in overlapping brain oscillations in the beta band.

Learning Verb Syntax via Listening: New Evidence From 22-Month-Olds

Children recruit verb syntax to guide verb interpretation. We asked whether 22-month-olds spontaneously encode information about a particular novel verb’s syntactic properties through listening to sentences, retain this information in long-term memory over a filled delay, and retrieve it to guide interpretation upon hearing the same novel verb again. Children watched dialogues in which interlocutors discussed unseen events using a novel verb in transitive (e.g., “Anna blicked the baby”) or intransitive sentences (“Anna blicked”). Children later heard the verb in isolation (“Find blicking!”) while viewing a two-participant causal action and a one-participant action event. Children who had heard transitive dialogues looked longer at the two-participant event than did those who heard intransitive dialogues. This effect disappeared if children heard a different novel verb at test (“Find kradding!”). These findings implicate a role for distributional learning in early verb learning: syntactic-combinatorial information about otherwise unknown words may pervade the toddler’s lexicon, guiding later word interpretation.

Saccadic eye movement rate as a cue to deceit

In the present experiment we considered a cue that has not been examined in nonverbal deception research before, non-visual saccadic eye movement rate. The psychological process as to why saccadic eye movements could be related to deception is also new for nonverbal deception research: memory retrieval. Non-visual saccadic eye movement rate has been shown to be related to memory search, with searching information in long-term memory generating increased saccadic activity (Ehrlichman & Micic, 2012). According to fMRI research lying is associated with more long-term memory search than truth telling (Ganis et al., 2003), which leads to our hypothesis that liars display more saccadic eye movements than truth tellers. Thirty participants expressed a true opinion and lied about another opinion (within-subjects design) and the number of saccades per second of speech was measured. As predicted, participants displayed fewer saccades when they told the truth than when they told a spontaneous lie. The implications for this finding are discussed.

Processing anomalous anaphors.

Previous researchers have demonstrated that readers may engage in shallow, or incomplete, processing when the semantic overlap between current information and previously encountered information is high. The present study investigated whether these effects would occur during processing of unambiguous noun phrase anaphors, for which there was only a single possible antecedent. Participants read passages containing anaphors that were correct, incorrect but highly related, or incorrect and low-related, with respect to previously encountered information. The time required to process the anaphor was a function of the goodness of fit between the anaphor and the antecedent; anaphors that were incorrect but highly related to the antecedent were processed more quickly than those that were incorrect and low-related. This occurred regardless of the distance between the anaphor and the antecedent. However, reading times results from a spillover sentence indicated that readers subsequently validated the anaphor against the information in memory, resulting in continued processing difficulty for both the incorrect-high- and -low-related anaphor conditions. The results are consistent with a three-stage comprehension model in which information is activated, integrated on the basis of its goodness of fit with the contents of working memory, and then validated against information in long-term memory.

New Empirical Directions to Evaluate Online Learning

A semantic net on Piaget s cognitive theory was obtained from a sample of 75 psychology pregraduate students. This allowed testing for semantic priming effects in this knowledge domain in other 20 pregraduate students. This last sample was required to take semantic priming studies before and after a computer lesson on Piaget s theory (experimental group), whereas another group who did not take the computer lesson was tested only once (control group). The semantic priming study allowed comparison of the word pair latencies based on Piaget s theory against standard associative, categorical and neutral related word pairs latencies. The schemata related word pairs used in the semantic priming studies were selected from connectionist computer simulations of schemata behavior, which in turn was based on the obtained semantic net. Then another connectionist neural net was implemented to test if semantic priming latencies from the control and experimental group provide systematic information to a neural net to discriminate students who learned the computer lesson from those who did not take the lesson. Results showed that the neural net is capable of discriminating students who integrated new information in long-term memory from those who did not by only considering reaction times from the semantic priming studies. Implications for new ways to evaluate e-learning are discussed.

Visual Long-Term Memory Has the Same Limit on Fidelity as Visual Working Memory

Visual long-term memory can store thousands of objects with surprising visual detail, but just how detailed are these representations, and how can one quantify this fidelity? Using the property of color as a case study, we estimated the precision of visual information in long-term memory, and compared this with the precision of the same information in working memory. Observers were shown real-world objects in random colors and were asked to recall the colors after a delay. We quantified two parameters of performance: the variability of internal representations of color (fidelity) and the probability of forgetting an object’s color altogether. Surprisingly, the fidelity of color information in long-term memory was comparable to the asymptotic precision of working memory. These results suggest that long-term memory and working memory may be constrained by a common limit, such as a bound on the fidelity required to retrieve a memory representation.

The short- and long-term consequences of directed forgetting in a working memory task

Directed forgetting requires the voluntary control of memory. Whereas many studies have examined directed forgetting in long-term memory (LTM), the mechanisms and effects of directed forgetting within working memory (WM) are less well understood. The current study tests how directed forgetting instructions delivered in a WM task influence veridical memory, as well as false memory, over the short and long term. In a modified item recognition task Experiment 1 tested WM only and demonstrated that directed forgetting reduces false recognition errors and semantic interference. Experiment 2 replicated these WM effects and used a surprise LTM recognition test to assess the long-term effects of directed forgetting in WM. Long-term veridical memory for to-be-remembered lists was better than memory for to-be-forgotten lists—the directed forgetting effect. Moreover, fewer false memories emerged for to-be-forgotten information than for to-be-remembered information in LTM as well. These results indicate that directed forgetting during WM reduces semantic processing of to-be-forgotten lists over the short and long term. Implications for theories of false memory and the mechanisms of directed forgetting within working memory are discussed.

How are automatic processes elicited by intended actions?

Although unintentionality is one of the key elements common to most traditional definitions of automaticity (e.g., Posner and Snyder, 1975; Shiffrin and Schneider, 1977; Hasher and Zacks, 1979; Jacoby et al., 1993; Tzelgov, 1997; Moors and De Houwer, 2006), more recent approaches pointed out that many automatic processes are affected and even elicited by intended processes (e.g., Bargh, 1994; Hommel, 2000; Tzelgov and Ganor-Stern, 2005; Yamaguchi and Proctor, 2012). However, there was no attempt to provide a systematic analysis of the different ways in which intended processes activate automatic ones. The present paper aims to fill this gap. We view automatic processes as a product of interplay between information in long-term memory, reflecting life-long experience, and information in working memory, reflecting the requirement of the current situation. Such requirements are translated into task sets (Monsell et al., 2001), which activate the intended processes directly but may also activate some unintended processes indirectly. This activation of an unintended process (AUP) is a product of the overlap existing between the parameters of the intended process and those of unintended processes that are often highly practiced (Kornblum et al., 1990; Hommel, 2000). Automatic processes can be triggered by AUP, and in some cases they will not start without it. Automatic processes differ in their dependence on AUP. Some automatic processes need very little AUP to occur, while for others, stronger AUP is needed (e.g., Bargh, 1989, 1992). Furthermore, AUP may not only trigger the occurrence of a process, but may also enhance its behavioral manifestation. For example, when the interference paradigm is used, the behavioral manifestation of the automatic processing, which is the interference effect, will be larger in conditions of strong vs. weak AUP. We expand on the original taxonomy of dimensional overlap developed by Kornblum et al. (1990) and propose a classification of five levels of AUP, by which automatic processes are activated by intended ones. Furthermore, we demonstrate their effects using empirical findings of well-known indicators of automaticity. Note that a single task can provide AUP at multiple levels.

Focusing the search: Proactive and retroactive interference and the dynamics of free recall.

Targeting information in long-term memory is an important cognitive ability, but one that is not well understood. In this study, 4 experiments were conducted to examine the influence of proactive and retroactive interference on memory targeting. Participants were given either 1 or 2 lists and asked to recall List 1, List 2, or in some cases both lists. Multiple dependent measures were explored including the proportion of items recalled, number of intrusions output, and recall latency to arbitrate between 4 extant accounts of memory targeting. In general, recalling either List 1 or List 2 resulted in lower probability of recall, recall of more intrusions, and longer recall latencies compared to when recalling a list alone, suggesting both proactive and retroactive interference. These results suggest that long-term memory targeting is guided by noisy temporal-contextual cues (unless other salient cues are present) that activate both relevant and irrelevant memoranda that are then subjected to a postretrieval monitoring process.

In search of enduring information effects: Evidence from a ten-week panel experiment

The extent to which the electorate uses issue information to update their candidate evaluations over the course of political campaigns has often raised questions about citizen competence. Using a ten-week panel experiment designed to capture the low-information context of most congressional races this study contributes to our understanding of when and by what processes issue information produces enduring effects. Findings reveal that when voters need to assess an ideologically moderate candidate, they rely less on partisan cues but instead of storing issue information in long-term memory – either via a memory-based or on-line process – considerations in short-term memory remained one of the most powerful predictors of candidate evaluation, particularly when new issue information deviated from partisan norms.

Working memory capacity and retrieval from long-term memory: the role of controlled search

In two experiments, the role of working memory capacity (WMC) in the controlled search of long-term memory was examined. Participants performed a prolonged category fluency task that required them to retrieve as many animals as possible in 5min. The results suggested that WMC differences arose in the numbers of animals retrieved, the numbers of clusters retrieved, and the rates of the retrieval (Exp. 1). However, no differences were found in terms of how participants initiated retrieval or in the nature of the clusters generated. Furthermore, an examination of differences in retrieval strategies suggested that high-WMC individuals were more strategic than low-WMC individuals and that these differences in retrieval strategies accounted for the overall differences in the numbers of animals retrieved. Additionally, presenting participants with retrieval cues eliminated WMC differences in the numbers of animals retrieved (Exp. 2). These results suggest that low-WMC individuals are less able than high-WMC individuals to select and utilize appropriate retrieval strategies to self-generate cues to access information in long-term memory. Collectively, the results are consistent with research suggesting that WMC is important for controlled search from long-term memory.

Effects of Differences in Working Memory Capacity on Patterns of Word Generation

In recent years, it has been reported that WM (working memory) is concerned with word generation, but many points regarding the relationship between the individual differences of WM capacity and the patterns of word generation remain unclear. This study is to investigate these unclear points by using three types of word fluency task with different strategies. Subjects were 28 healthy native speakers of Japanese with an average age of 22.46 ± 3.26 years old. The experimental design included the following two tasks: (1) Japanese reading span test: Subjects were divided into the high-span, middle-span, and low-span WM capacity groups on the basis of the proportion of words recalled correctly; and (2) Word fluency task (category, letter, and verb conditions): In this task, subjects gave as many words as possible that were associated with each stimulus word within 60 s; four stimulus words in each category were used with 12 words in all. As a result, it has become clear that the high-span group with larger WM capacity can generate more words in number than the other groups and is superior in word generating capacity to them and that the low-span group with smaller WM capacity is the highest in the proportion of words generated in the first 15 s when their vocabulary is abundant, while it is the lowest during 45-60 s when their vocabulary dries up. The results suggest that WM capacity is involved in the ability to extract appropriate vocabulary from long-term memory information in immediate response.

Success modulates consolidation of a visuomotor adaptation task.

Consolidation is a time-dependent process that is responsible for the storage of information in long-term memory. As such, it plays a crucial role in motor learning. Prior research suggests that some consolidation processes are triggered only when the learner experiences some success during practice. In the present study, we tested whether consolidation processes depend on the objective performance of the learner or on the learner's subjective evaluation of his or her own performance (i.e., how successful the learner believes he or she is). Four groups of participants performed 2 sessions of a visuomotor adaptation task for which they had to learn a new internal model of limb kinematics; these sessions were either 5 min or 24 hr apart. The task was identical for all participants, but each group was given a difficult or an easy objective that affected the participants' evaluation of their own performance during the initial practice session. All groups adapted their movements similarly to the rotation of the visual feedback during the first session. However, when retested the following day, participants who had a 24-hr rest interval and had initially experienced success performed significantly better than those who did not feel successful or who were given a 5-min rest interval. Our results indicate that a certain level of subjective success must be experienced to trigger certain consolidation processes.

Consolidation and reconsolidation of memory in black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus).

Multiple phases of protein synthesis are necessary for the synaptic modifications that consolidate long-term memory. The reconsolidation hypothesis supposes that information in long-term memory becomes labile and subject to change when retrieved and must be reconsolidated into long-term memory. The current study used the protein synthesis inhibitor anisomycin to examine memory consolidation in birds and to test the reconsolidation hypothesis. Black-capped chickadees store food and usually remember which of their caches they have emptied and which they have left full. In Experiment 1, anisomycin was injected either immediately and 2 hr after food caching, or 4 and 6 hr after food caching. Inhibition of protein synthesis impaired memory for cache sites 24 and 48 hr later. In Experiment 2, it was hypothesized that long-term memory for food caches becomes labile as predicted by the reconsolidation hypothesis when birds search for caches. Anisomycin was administered immediately after chickadees had searched for their caches. Inhibition of protein synthesis should disrupt memory for caches left full if these sites are retrieved from long-term memory and require reconsolidation. Control birds were later more likely to revisit full caches than caches they had emptied. Birds given anisomycin revisited both kinds of caches and did not distinguish between them. This result shows that reconsolidation of full caches into long-term memory is not necessary following search for cache sites, but also shows that protein synthesis-dependent consolidation is required for updating the status of emptied caches.