Implicit Memory Research Articles

Il riconsolidamento della memoria

The research on consolidaction of the memory, in the neuroscientific field, want to dimostrate that is possibile the cancellation of “ emotion learning” reported in implicit memory. This article want to examine some of these results and how they can be traslate in therapeutic practice, to provide a common change’s model and confirmed empirically. This new trans- theoretical knowledge, entrusted to clinic professionals, can have an impact, both on psycotherapy’s effectiveness, and on models of psychological treatment. This article try to explain the ri-consolidation process of the memory and underline the evidences to support the assumption that this process is responsable of changing therapy and is different from other changing’s models that aspire to “autoregolation” that, actually, is dominant in the clinic paradigm. Keywords: reconsolidation of memory, implicit emotional patterns, transformative change process

Side by Side: Reflections on Two Lifetimes of Dance.

Telling stories about our experiences in dance brings to light unconscious knowledge and memories of the past and helps us understand our own decisions and practices. Reflexivity and story telling is central in the process of remembering and embodies some of the key aspects of autoethnography as a research tool. We are directed to examine and reflect on our experiences, analyzing goals and intentions, making connections between happenings and recounting each single experience. Dance has the potential for positive impact on both physical and mental health among professional dancers as well as among dance students and has the power to connect them to culture and community in unique and important ways. Research has provided evidence that arts engagement provides positive forms of social inclusion, opportunities to share arts, culture, language, and values and points to the value of the arts in the prevention and amelioration of health problems. Together with those benefits of a dance experience there is clear evidence of what can be learned in, through and about dance. In this time of the Covid-19 pandemic it seemed more relevant and poignant to examine our own experiences in dance as well as those experiences of others that have influenced our lives.

Sleep does not aid the generalisation of binocular disparity-based learning to the other visual hemifield.

Visual perceptual learning refers to long-lasting performance improvements on a visual skill - an ability supported by plastic changes in early visual brain areas. Visual perceptual learning has been shown to be induced by training and to benefit from consolidation during sleep, presumably via the reactivation of learning-associated neuronal firing patterns. However, previous studies have almost exclusively relied on a single paradigm, the texture discrimination task, on which performance improvements may rely on higher-order rather than lower-level perceptual skills. In the present study, we tested whether sleep has beneficial effects on a visual disparity discrimination task. We confirm previous findings in showing that the ability to discriminate different disparities is unaffected by sleep during a 12-hr retention period after training. Importantly, we extend these results by providing evidence against an effect of sleep on the generalisation of improved disparity discrimination across the vertical meridian. By relying on a between-subject design, we further exclude carry-over effects as a possible confound present in previous findings. These data argue against sleep as an important factor in the consolidation of a low-level perceptual skill. This sets important constraints on models of the role of sleep and sleep-associated neural reactivation in the consolidation of non-declarative memories.

Body-speak: Poetic intervention for adult survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA) – An autoethnographic approach

In this article, I consider what it means to think with the body from the perspective of trauma theory and adult recovery from Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA). I argue that acknowledging, cultivating and normalizing the multi-temporality of awareness that comes from healing and thinking with the body can lead to an integrative survivor-centered praxis of recovery and inclusion. Through a feminist and autoethnographic lens, I suggest that trauma theory shows us that if we are to adequately include survivors of CSA in contemporary dialogues of reclaiming and prevention against sexual violence, we must foster collective participation in non-normative modes of meaning-making. Doing so can cultivate wide-spread understanding and appreciation of implicit memory and knowledge.

Robot-Touch Promotes Memory Sensitization

Research show that we are more skeptical of the machines than fellow humans. They also find that we are reluctant to change this perception in spite of the possibility for increased efficiency through cooperative engagement with them. However, these findings that primarily focused on algorithmic agents may not readily be attributable to the case of robots. To fill this gap, the present study investigated whether the background information about the level of autonomy of a robot would have any effect on its perception by individuals whom it made a physical contact with. For this purpose, we conducted an experiment in which a robot-arm touched the left arm of thirty young Japanese adults (fifteen females, age: 22 ± 1.64) in two trials. While the robot was autonomous in both trials, we told our participants that in one of their trials the robot was controlled by a human operator while in the other the robot moved autonomously. We observed that the previous findings on soft agents extended to the case of robots in that participants significantly preferred their trial that was supposedly operated by a human. More importantly, we identified a memory sensitization with respect to the trial-order in which participants preferred their first trial, regardless of whether it was a robot- or a supposedly human-controlled scenario. As a type of nondeclarative memory that contributes to nonassociative learning, the observed memory sensitization highlighted participants’ growing perceptual distance to the robot-touch that was primarily triggered by the unconscious learning-component of their physical contact with the robot. The present findings substantiate the necessity for more in-depth and socially situated study and analysis of these new generation of our tools to better comprehend the extent of their (dis)advantages to more effectively introduce them to our society.

Explicit and implicit conceptual memory in pregnancy and postpartum: A cross-sectional study investigating the use of item-specific and relational encoding processes.

Previous studies indicate that pregnancy is associated with a mild impairment in verbal recall tasks, but the relative roles of item-specific and relational encoding processes have not been fully elucidated. The present study was specifically aimed at determining whether pregnancy had a differential impact on the use of these 2 types of encoding processes. The performance of pregnant, postpartum, and control women was assessed in the category-cued recall (Experiment 1: explicit memory) and category exemplar generation (Experiment 2: implicit memory) tasks, by simultaneously varying the number of exemplars presented during the study phase (1 exemplar for small categories, 6 exemplars for large categories). Control women showed the expected crossed double dissociation: Performance in category-cued recall was better for small than for large categories (confirming that this task relied on the use of item-specific encoding processes), whereas repetition priming in category exemplar generation was higher for large than for small categories (confirming that this task relied on the use of relational encoding processes). For pregnant and postpartum women, no significant differences between small and large categories were detected in the category-cued recall task; furthermore, in the category exemplar generation task, these 2 groups exhibited greater priming for small category exemplars. Overall, our data suggest that pregnancy might involve complex changes in the use of item-specific and relational encoding processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Connecting sleep, the neurocognitive memory system, and Bourdieu's habitus concept: Is sleep a generative force of the habitus?

AbstractBourdieu's habitus theory has been criticized for allegedly being static and deterministic. This is partly due to insufficiently elaborated microstructural aspects of the habitus. Previous works have tried to elaborate the habitus' individual side by drawing on neuropsychological and neuroscientific concepts including the neuropsychological memory system. Despite its relevance for several social processes, sleep has not been considered in this context. The present work investigates the interrelatedness of habitus, sleep, and the memory system with particular focus on the determinism and staticity critique. It shows that the neuropsychological memory system overlaps largely with implicit memory and sleep plays an important role in the formation of habitus‐relevant memory. Moreover, sleep enhances processes such as memory consolidation, reflexivity, associative creativity, and dream‐associated simulation of unknown situations which counter the determinism and staticity critique. The present article argues that habitus, memory, and sleep are closely related and memory and sleep represent operational micro‐structures of the habitus. Moreover, sleep‐related processes represent a generative force that renders the habitus more dynamic. Finally, strengths and weaknesses of the habitus‐memory‐sleep nexus are discussed and further lines of research are outlined.

A conceptual space for episodic and semantic memory.

I propose a model that places episodic, semantic, and other commonly studied forms of memory into the same conceptual space. The space is defined by three dimensions required for Tulving's episodic and semantic memory. An implicit-explicit dimension contrasts both episodic and semantic memory with common forms of implicit memory. A self-reference dimension contrasts episodes that occurred to one person with semantic knowledge. A scene dimension contrasts episodes that occurred in specific contexts with context-free semantic information. The three dimensions are evaluated against existing behavioral and neural evidence to evaluate both the model and the concepts underlying the study of human memory. Unlike a hierarchy, which has properties specific to each category, the dimensions have properties that extend throughout the conceptual space. Thus, the properties apply to all forms of existing and yet-to-be-discovered memory within the space. Empty locations in the proposed space are filled with existing phenomena that lack a clear place in current theories of memory, including reports of episodic-like memories for events reported to but not witnessed by a person, fictional narrative accounts, déjà vu, and implicit components contributing to personality, the self, and autobiographical memory.

Dr James Ost’s contributions to the work of the British false memory society

ABSTRACT The British False Memory Society (BFMS) is a registered charity founded in 1993 in response to an epidemic of false claims of past childhood sexual abuse by adults in therapy. The accusers believe they have recovered unconscious memories of a hidden past, but scientific and other evidence raise the possibility of false memories or retrospective reappraisal. The BFMS aims to raise awareness about false memory and to reduce the impact of the resulting false accusations. Dr James Ost was an active member of the BFMS’s Scientific and Professional Advisory Board. Three lines of his research were particularly relevant to the work of the BFMS. The first of these was his investigations of retractors. His insights provided a deeper understanding of processes involved in the formation and subsequent rejection of false memories and beliefs relating to such allegations. He also carried out experimental studies providing empirical proof that false memories can be implanted under well controlled conditions. Finally, he carried out, and produced reviews of, surveys of misconceptions about the nature of memory, thus highlighting issues that have major implications for the working of the legal system. Dr Ost also served as an expert defence witness on a number of occasions.

An implicit memory of errors limits human sensorimotor adaptation.

During extended motor adaptation, learning appears to saturate despite persistence of residual errors. This adaptation limit is not fixed but varies with perturbation variance; when variance is high, residual errors become larger. These changes in total adaptation could relate to either implicit or explicit learning systems. Here, we found that when adaptation relied solely on the explicit system, residual errors disappeared and learning was unaltered by perturbation variability. In contrast, when learning depended entirely, or in part, on implicit learning, residual errors reappeared. Total implicit adaptation decreased in the high-variance environment due to changes in error sensitivity, not in forgetting. These observations suggest a model in which the implicit system becomes more sensitive to errors when they occur in a consistent direction. Thus, residual errors in motor adaptation are at least in part caused by an implicit learning system that modulates its error sensitivity in response to the consistency of past errors.

Binding Trauma

Binding Trauma

Sex Does Not Sell: Effects of Sexual Advertising Parameters on Women Viewers' Implicit and Explicit Recall of Ads and Brands.

This study investigated implicit and explicit memory effects of sexual and non-sexual advertisements embedded in either a sexual or non-sexual program among women viewers. We predicted that sexual appeals would facilitate implicit memory for the brand, and we explored whether program-type (sexual or non-sexual) and its associated congruity would impact or moderate recall of the surrounding advertisement among a small sample (n = 52) of exclusively women advertisement viewers. Sexual (versus non-sexual) advertising led to significantly worse implicit memory for the brand logo but better explicit recall for the advertisement scene itself. There was no effect of sexual appeals on explicit brand name recall, and no significant effect on advertisement recall of the program type. There was a significant interaction effect for program type and advertisement type for explicit recall of the advertisement scene, in which program-type moderated sexual advertisement recall. These results suggest that sexual advertising may increase memory for the advertisement at the expense of recalling the brand advertised. Limitations and implications of this study are discussed.

Developmental neuroscience of memory: research status and future prospect

<p indent=0mm>Memory is crucial for the acquisition of the tremendous amount of knowledge and skills and thus it is the basis of human survival and development. Then, how do learning and memory performance and neural mechanisms change with age? Around the core issue, this article first summarized the research results in recent years, especially those about some important memory subsystems such as working memory and long-term memory (including explicit and implicit memory). Then we revealed the research status in the field of developmental neuroscience of memory and predicted the future direction. On the basis of the work mentioned above, we put forward following suggestions to promote research work in China: (i) making further studies on the neural mechanisms of learning and memory and solving critical problems in this field; (ii) strengthening research on brain mechanisms of learning and memory of children and the elderly; (iii) paying attention to longitudinal studies; (iv) establishing more comprehensive brain-behavior models; (v) strengthening applied studies.

The road to long-term memory: Top-down attention is more effective than bottom-up attention for forming long-term memories

Does the strength of representations in long-term memory (LTM) depend on which type of attention is engaged? We tested participants’ memory for objects seen during visual search. We compared implicit memory for two types of objects—related-context nontargets that grabbed attention because they matched the target defining feature (i.e., color; top-down attention) and salient distractors that captured attention only because they were perceptually distracting (bottom-up attention). In Experiment 1, the salient distractor flickered, while in Experiment 2, the luminance of the salient distractor was alternated. Critically, salient and related-context nontargets produced equivalent attentional capture, yet related-context nontargets were remembered far better than salient distractors (and salient distractors were not remembered better than unrelated distractors). These results suggest that LTM depends not only on the amount of attention but also on the type of attention. Specifically, top-down attention is more effective in promoting the formation of memory traces than bottom-up attention.

Propofol and sevoflurane affect intra-operative memory formation of words differently: A prospective cohort study.

Memory priming seems possible even during apparently adequate anaesthesia. However, the effects of different anaesthetics and type of stimuli, by virtue of their specific neural underpinnings, have not been considered. To determine if intra-operative implicit memory is affected by the type of anaesthesia (propofol or sevoflurane) or by the type of stimuli (abstract or concrete words). Two consecutive, randomised controlled experiments. Neurological institute in Milan, Italy. Forty-three patients undergoing anaesthesia with propofol (experiment 1) and 32 patients undergoing anaesthesia with sevoflurane (experiment 2). Patients were ASA I or II, age 18 to 65 years, native Italian speakers, right-handed and without any condition affecting memory or hearing. During anaesthesia, the patients heard a list of either concrete or abstract words or no words at all (controls). Explicit memory was tested with an explicit recall task and the Brice Interview; implicit memory was assessed through a word stem completion test. The number of explicitly recalled words, positivity to the Brice Interview, the proportion of target and nontarget hits, and a derived implicit memory score. With propofol, the proportion of target hits was significantly greater than the proportion of nontarget hits for the concrete word experimental group (P = 0.018). The implicit memory score of the concrete word experimental group was significantly higher than the score of both the abstract word experimental group (P = 0.000) and the concrete word control group (P = 0.023). With sevoflurane, the proportion of target hits was significantly higher than the proportion of nontarget hits for the abstract word experimental group only (P = 0.027). No patients had a BIS above 60 and no one could recall intra-operative events or words. Intra-operative memory for words can form during apparently adequate BIS-guided anaesthesia but is modified by propofol or sevoflurane acting on different brain targets. Further studies on larger samples and using neuroimaging techniques are needed. Clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT03727464.

Facilitating Workers’ Task Proficiency with Subtle Decay of Contextual AR-Based Assistance Derived from Unconscious Memory Structures

Contemporary assistance systems support a broad variety of tasks. When they provide information or instruction, the way they do it has an implicit and often not directly graspable impact on the user. System design often forces static roles onto the user, which can have negative side effects when system errors occur or unique and previously unknown situations need to be tackled. We propose an adjustable augmented reality-based assistance infrastructure that adapts to the user’s individual cognitive task proficiency and dynamically reduces its active intervention in a subtle, not consciously noticeable way over time to spare attentional resources and facilitate independent task execution. We also introduce multi-modal mechanisms to provide context-sensitive assistance and argue why system architectures that provide explainability of concealed automated processes can improve user trust and acceptance.

Attachment-Based Therapy for Addiction and Trauma in Children and Adolescents

This article is about why children and adolescents with traumatic experiences are particularly at risk of becoming severely addicted. It addresses the question of why it is so difficult for them to feel safe in therapeutic relationships. It will be examined to what extent the epidemiology of addiction, trauma, and attachment disorder provides evidence as to whether there is a significant relationship among the disorders that contributes to the complicated and lengthy nature of therapy for adolescents who have become severely addicted. It will describe how the reward system, attachment system, and anxiety-stress system (limbic system) interact at the neurobiological level. As a result of the study, it is shown that the role of the reward system in understanding the development of dependence cannot be understood neurophysiologically without the role of attachment and anxiety-stress. One conclusion from this is that this relationship should be taken into account therapeutically in order to be able to expand the spectrum of therapeutic intervention options and to be able to make the therapy of severe dependence disorders in adolescence more successful. Methodologically, two levels of description are compared here: On the first level, the neurobiological research findings are presented as the connection between addiction, trauma and attachment; on the second level, the significance of the research findings for therapeutic practice is concretely described and empirically demonstrated on the basis of a case report. In conclusion, it is shown that understanding the neurobiological function of the implicit memory systems of reward, attachment, and anxiety/stress has a central importance for the further development of addiction therapy for dependent adolescents.

Chapter 2 - Unconscious processing of emotions and the right hemisphere

Many influential authors maintain that, even if emotions are conscious experiences, the processing of information that produces emotions is usually unconscious. This chapter discusses the nonconscious aspects of emotional processing and the critical role played in them by the right hemisphere. This chapter first reviews the studies that have demonstrated the existence of unconscious or subconscious forms of emotional processing and then discusses the data supporting the hypothesis that the right hemisphere is dominant for the processing of emotions. After these topics are reviewed, the chapter will discuss investigations that have shown that the right and left amygdala have different roles in the processing of emotional stimuli, the former being involved in nonconscious and the latter in conscious forms of emotional learning. This chapter will also address the distinction proposed by Freud between "removed" and "nonremoved" forms of unconscious processing and will consider whether "nonremoved preverbal implicit memories" have a preferential link with the right hemisphere. The possibility that the right hemisphere may play a critical role not only in the formation of nonremoved subconscious memories but also in the development of denial phenomena, resulting from dynamic processes of unconscious repression, will also be discussed.

Attentional boost effect in conceptual implicit memory

Attentional boost effect in conceptual implicit memory

Прайминг и его эффекты в получении криминалистически значимой информации

The article deals with the phenomenon of priming, its effects in obtaining and evaluating the testimony of interrogated persons in criminal cases. The problem of obtaining evidence is central to the criminal process and is considered as a system of actions of participants in the preliminary investigation related to the knowledge and modeling of past events, forecasting the investigation process in the future and obtaining evidentiary and orienting information. The analysis of the studied materials of criminal cases on 1,300 crimes against life and health, sexual integrity and sexual freedom of the individual showed that, in the structure of evidence, the testimony of witnesses, victims, accused persons (suspects) occupies more than a half (54.7%). An important role in obtaining and evaluating the testimony of persons questioned in a criminal case is played by priming, which promotes the activation of behavioral and trace manifestations of human memory in order to reproduce complete and objective forensically significant information in the testimony. The object of the study was the activity of the interrogator and the interrogated person video recorded during the criminal proceedings in the situation of interrogation. The empirical basis of the study was materials of more than 250 criminal cases (murders, rapes, crimes against property, etc.), of which more than 302 video materials of interrogations were viewed. When the interrogated person is ready to give evidence, but for some reason (physiological, psychological) cannot do it, the use of priming effects will help to change this situation in a favorable direction. In conflict situations of interrogation, the use of priming effects helps to correct the unconscious manifestations of psychological defenses, reduce the manifestations of psychological trauma, and establish psychological contact. The analysis of the content of information at an unconscious level, the search for features and categories (comparison with memory standards) is associated with the detection of this information in the space (array) of implicit memory; at the same time, the criteria for such a selection are determined by long-term memory that preserves standards, motivational attitudes and ways of processing input information. Local effects of unconscious information are reflected in conscious cognitive activity, especially in the study of investigative situations. The use of such tactics contributes to the investigation of crimes. The potential for using priming effects in conducting investigative actions aimed at obtaining the testimony of participants in the pretrial stage of criminal proceedings (witnesses, victims, suspects, accused persons) expands the possibilities for obtaining information. The tactic of using priming in the investigation of criminal acts requires a deeper scientific study and experimental confirmation.