Recall Patterns Research Articles

The impact of threat of shock on memory for threat-irrelevant information: Evidence for a role of reduced semantic organization

Research into the effects of acute anxiety on episodic memory has produced inconsistent findings, particularly for threat-neutral information. In two experiments, we tested the hypothesis that anxiety induced by threat of shock can interfere with the use of semantic-organizational processes that benefit memory. In Experiment 1, participants viewed and freely recalled two lists of semantically unrelated neutral words, one encoded in a threatening context (threat blocks) and one encoded without threat (safe blocks). As predicted, significantly fewer words were recalled during threat than safe blocks. Moreover, free recall patterns following threat blocks showed lower levels of semantic organization as assessed using a “path length” measurement that considers the semantic distance between pairs of consecutively recalled words. Both effects unexpectedly interacted with block order, such that they primarily reflected improved recall and increased semantic organization from the first to the second block in participants who received the threat block first. Experiment 2 used semantically related word lists to reduce potential impacts of task experience on semantic organization. Free recall was again less accurate and showed longer (less organized) path lengths for threat than safe blocks, and the path length effect no longer interacted with block order. Moreover, threat-induced changes to path lengths emerged as a mediator of the relation between physiological effects of threat (increased skin conductance) and reduced subsequent memory. These data point to semantic control processes as an understudied determinant of when and how acute anxiety impacts episodic memory.

Deep into Cognition: The Neuropsychological Identikit of Younger and Older Individuals after COVID-19 Infection.

The literature on COVID-19 continues to increase daily. Cognitive sequelae associated with COVID-19 infection still draw the attention of the scientific community given the lack of consensus about their existence, etiology, characterization and reversibility. The aim of this study is to provide a neuropsychological identikit for younger (<65 years) and older (≥65 years) individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 infection, at baseline and after 3 and 6 months. In total, 226 individuals took part in a retrospective observational study and their cognitive performance was compared across groups (younger adults vs. older adults) and time (T0, T1, T2). The results highlighted differences between younger and older adults in the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) global score, as expected in consideration of the different physiological conditions of the two populations. However, memory performance highlighted the two groups as characterized by a difference in patterns of recall that may move beyond a physiological explanation and provide information about COVID-19 cognitive sequelae. This study suggests that cognitive deficits observed in COVID-19 survivors may reflect a difficulty in attention and concentration that interferes mainly with retrieval processes. This result fits well with the concept of "brain fog" typical of post-COVID-19 syndrome and may also reflect the stress experienced while facing the pandemic.

Entries of the bottleneck matrices of maximal outerplanar graphs

In this paper, we consider the entries of the bottleneck matrices of maximal outerplanar graphs. We recall patterns from [Kirkland SJ, Neumann M, Shader BL. Characteristic vertices of weighted trees via Perron values. Linear Multilinear Algebra. 1996;40:311–325.] involving the entries of bottleneck matrices for trees. We first establish similar patterns involving the diagonal entries of bottleneck matrices for maximal outerplanar graphs. We then investigate patterns involving the off-diagonal entries of bottleneck matrices for maximal outerplanar graphs and establish similar results to those found in [Kirkland SJ, Neumann M, Shader BL. Characteristic vertices of weighted trees via Perron values. Linear Multilinear Algebra. 1996;40:311–325.] for trees. We close with examples illustrating our results.

Emotional salience modulates the forward-flow of memory.

As we navigate our day-to-day lives, we regularly adapt our behaviour according to what we predict may happen next in a given context. When an unexpected event occurs, our predictions about the world are disrupted and must be updated. Unexpected, isolated events, particularly with high emotionality, are also better recalled. In the present work, we investigated how oddballs affect recall dynamics. Seventy young, healthy participants encoded word lists containing either emotional or perceptual oddballs at varying stimulus onset asynchronies followed by free recall. It is well established that after recalling an item, we have a higher probability of recalling items encoded nearby, particularly those that were encoded after the item was recalled, a phenomenon known as forward contiguity of recall. We tested how novelty (oddballs versus control words) modulated forward contiguity as a function of salience type (emotional versus perceptual). The present results provide empirical evidence of forward contiguity modulation selectively by emotional salience and suggest that recall patterns after presenting emotional and perceptual oddballs are mediated by different mechanisms.

Assessing the relationship of prospective, retrospective, and everyday memory with cognitive failure among Bangladeshi adults

Memory has a profound impact on every aspect of who we are. The present study explored the extent to which deficits in everyday memory (EM), prospective memory (PM), and retrospective memory (RM) serve as predictive indicators of cognitive failure (CF) in the context of the Bangladeshi population, as well as to identify differences for the variables across various age cohorts and genders. A total of 352 participants took part in the cross-sectional survey of PM, RM, EM, CF, and the demographic questionnaire package. The main goal of this study was accomplished by the findings, which showed a positive link between CF and EM, PM, and RM. Additionally, the results show that while deficiencies in RM have a somewhat smaller correlation with CF, lapses in EM and PM primarily serve as predictive indications of CF. The results of the current study reveal a recurrent pattern of memory recall and cognitive failure, where men are doing generally better than those of women. A noteworthy finding was the superior performance of middle-aged adults in comparison to their younger counterparts. Hence the majority of memory research is conducted on Western or European people, therefore the current study and its findings can serve as a strong starting point for determining the reasons, nature, and direction of the correlations between memory types and cognitive failures. Dhaka Univ. J. Biol. Sci. 33(1): 133-142, 2024 (January)

PEPPR: A post-encoding pre-production reinstatement model of dual-list free recall.

Recent events are easy to recall, but they also interfere with the recall of more distant, non-recent events. In many computational models, non-recent memories are recalled by using the context associated with those events as a cue. Some models, however, do little to explain how people initially activate non-recent contexts in the service of accurate recall. We addressed this limitation by evaluating two candidate mechanisms within the Context-Maintenance and Retrieval model. The first is a Backward-Walk mechanism that iteratively applies a generate/recognize process to covertly retrieve progressively less recent items. The second is a Post-Encoding Pre-Production Reinstatement (PEPPR) mechanism that formally implements a metacognitive control process that reinstates non-recent contexts prior to retrieval. Models including these mechanisms make divergent predictions about the dynamics of response production and monitoring when recalling non-recent items. Before producing non-recent items, Backward-Walk cues covert retrievals of several recent items, whereas PEPPR cues few, if any, covert retrievals of that sort. We tested these predictions using archival data from a dual-list externalized free recall paradigm that required subjects to report all items that came to mind while recalling from the non-recent list. Simulations showed that only the model including PEPPR accurately predicted covert recall patterns. That same model fit the behavioral data well. These findings suggest that self-initiated context reinstatement plays an important role in recall of non-recent memories and provides a formal model that uses a parsimonious non-hierarchical context representation of how such reinstatement might occur.

Towards hypergraph cognitive networks as feature-rich models of knowledge

Conceptual associations influence how human memory is structured: Cognitive research indicates that similar concepts tend to be recalled one after another. Semantic network accounts provide a useful tool to understand how related concepts are retrieved from memory. However, most current network approaches use pairwise links to represent memory recall patterns (e.g. reading “airplane” makes one think of “air” and “pollution”, and this is represented by links “airplane”-“air” and “airplane”-“pollution”). Pairwise connections neglect higher-order associations, i.e. relationships between more than two concepts at a time. These higher-order interactions might covariate with (and thus contain information about) how similar concepts are along psycholinguistic dimensions like arousal, valence, familiarity, gender and others. We overcome these limits by introducing feature-rich cognitive hypergraphs as quantitative models of human memory where: (i) concepts recalled together can all engage in hyperlinks involving also more than two concepts at once (cognitive hypergraph aspect), and (ii) each concept is endowed with a vector of psycholinguistic features (feature-rich aspect). We build hypergraphs from word association data and use evaluation methods from machine learning features to predict concept concreteness. Since concepts with similar concreteness tend to cluster together in human memory, we expect to be able to leverage this structure. Using word association data from the Small World of Words dataset, we compared a pairwise network and a hypergraph with N= 3586 concepts/nodes. Interpretable artificial intelligence models trained on (1) psycholinguistic features only, (2) pairwise-based feature aggregations, and on (3) hypergraph-based aggregations show significant differences between pairwise and hypergraph links. Specifically, our results show that higher-order and feature-rich hypergraph models contain richer information than pairwise networks leading to improved prediction of word concreteness. The relation with previous studies about conceptual clustering and compartmentalisation in associative knowledge and human memory are discussed.

Hypergraph models of the mental lexicon capture greater information than pairwise networks for predicting language learning

Human memory is a complex system that works in associative ways: Reading a cue word can lead to the recollection of associated concepts. The network structure of memory recall patterns has been shown to contain insights about a wide variety of cognitive phenomena, including language acquisition. However, most current network approaches use pairwise connections, i.e. links between only two words at a time. This ignores the possibility that more than two concept representations might be simultaneously associated in memory. We overcome this modelling limitation by introducing cognitive hypergraphs as models of human memory. We model memory recall patterns through word associations from the Small World of Words project for N=6003 concepts (Study 1) and for N=497 concepts (Study 2). In each study we represent word associations as either a pairwise network or a hypergraph. By combining psycholinguistic norms and network centrality measures with machine learning, we quantitatively investigate whether there is any benefit to using the hypergraph model over a pairwise network in predicting test-based age of acquisition norms in children up to age 9 years (Study 1) or normative learning in toddlers up to age 30 months (Study 2, based on CHILDES data). We show that cognitive hypergraphs capture more information than pairwise networks from the same data: Cognitive hypergraphs are considerably more powerful than pairwise networks at predicting age of acquisition trends in toddlers, children and teenagers. Our studies showcase how novel approaches merging artificial intelligence and higher-order interactions can help us understand cognitive development.

A morphine reward generalization mouse model based on conditioned place preference and aversion.

Conditioned place preference (CPP) is a common behavioral paradigm for studying the association of unconditioned stimulus reward memory with context. Generalization is a flexiblememory recall pattern developedon thebasis oforiginal memory. Drug-seeking behaviors in substance usedisorders(SUDs) exhibit diversity,which wegenerallyattribute to the highly generalizedfeaturesof SUD memory. However, to date, there are no animal models for SUD generalization studies. We design the generalization box (G-box) and the generalization retrieval process based on the conditioned place preference (CPP) model. In the memory retrieval stage, we replaced the conditioning CPP box (T-box) with a generalization box (G-box) to study drug generalization memory. For appearance, the generalized boxes have different angles and numbers of sides compared to the conditioning boxes. For the visual cues, the shapes of the symbols are different (triangle icons for the hexagonal chamber and dot icons for the round chamber), but the orientation information remains the same. To establish CPP generalization, the mice received morphine on the vertical or horizontal side of a conditioning box (T-box) andsaline on theotherside. Then, after CPP conditioning, the generalization test was performed in a generalization box (G-box: hexagonal chamber and Gr-box: round chamber) 21 days later. CPP-conditioned mice still displayed a clear preference for similar visual information in the G-box. CPA-conditioned mice behaved similarly to CPP, with mice consistently avoiding similar visual information in the G-box. We further observed that the generalization results are similar using two generalization boxes (G-box and Gr-box). In this study, we succeeded in creating a simple and effective generalization model for morphine reward. The establishment of this model provides a new tool for generalization studies of SUD and therapy in humans.

Recall patterns and risk of primary liver cancer for subcentimeter ultrasound liver observations: a multicenter study

Patients with cirrhosis and subcentimeter lesions on liver ultrasound are recommended to undergo short-interval follow-up ultrasound because of the presumed low risk of primary liver cancer (PLC). The aim of this study is to characterize recall patterns and risk of PLC in patients with subcentimeter liver lesions on ultrasound. We conducted a multicenter retrospective cohort study among patients with cirrhosis or chronic hepatitis B infection who had subcentimeter ultrasound lesions between January 2017 and December 2019. We excluded patients with a history of PLC or concomitant lesions ≥1cm in diameter. We used Kaplan Meier and multivariable Cox regression analyses to characterize time-to-PLC and factors associated with PLC, respectively. Of 746 eligible patients, most (66.0%) had a single observation, and the median diameter was 0.7cm (interquartile range: 0.5-0.8cm). Recall strategies varied, with only 27.8% of patients undergoing guideline-concordant ultrasound within 3-6 months. Over a median follow-up of 26 months, 42 patients developed PLC (39 HCC and 3 cholangiocarcinoma), yielding an incidence of 25.7 cases (95% CI, 6.2-47.0) per 1000 person-years, with 3.9% and 6.7% developing PLC at 2 and 3 years, respectively. Factors associated with time-to-PLC were baseline alpha-fetoprotein >10ng/mL (HR: 4.01, 95% CI, 1.85-8.71), platelet count ≤150 (HR: 4.90, 95% CI, 1.95-12.28), and Child-Pugh B cirrhosis (vs. Child-Pugh A: HR: 2.54, 95% CI, 1.27-5.08). Recall patterns for patients with subcentimeter liver lesions on ultrasound varied widely. The low risk of PLC in these patients supports short-interval ultrasound in 3-6 months, although diagnostic CT/MRI may be warranted for high-risk subgroups such as those with elevated alpha-fetoprotein levels.

What is remembered?: The recall of health-related information in cyberchondria and health anxiety

Cyberchondria is excessive online seeking of health-related information followed by distress. We aimed to examine the effects of cyberchondria and the credibility of the health-related sources on recall, and to investigate cyberchondria as a mediator between health anxiety (HA) and recall. Participants (N = 194) read about an alleged disease from sources of various credibility (high, low, neutral), filled in the HA Questionnaire and the Short Cyberchondria Scale, and recalled the information. No effect of source credibility on recall was found. Participants with high cyberchondria recalled more information, even when HA was controlled. Better recall in high HA was mediated by cyberchondria. A direct effect of HA on recall was found only for distorted recall of health information. This indicates different recall patterns in people with high HA depending on their cyberchondria, probably due to elaborated health schemas in cyberchondria, and to the disregard of source credibility in persons with high HA and low cyberchondria.

Strategic Formal Layoffs: Unemployment Insurance and Informal Labor Markets

Exploiting an unemployment insurance reform in Brazil, we study incentive effects of UI in the presence of informal labor markets. We find that eligibility for UI benefits increases formal layoffs by 11 percent. Most of the additional layoffs are related to workers transitioning to informal employment. We further document formal layoff and recall patterns consistent with rent extraction from the UI system. Workers are laid off as they become eligible for UI benefits and recalled when benefits cease. These patterns are stronger for industries and municipalities with a high degree of labor market informality. (JEL J22, J46, J63, J65, K31, O15)

Preserved visuoconstruction in patients with Alzheimer's pathology and anti-neural autoantibodies: A case control study.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is seldom reported to be associated with neural autoantibodies apart from those involved in axonal neurodegeneration and amyloidopathy in prior studies. Nevertheless, this is an under-investigated aspect of AD. As we do not know whether additional screening for autoantibodies in AD patients has additional diagnostic and therapeutic value, this study aims to shed light on whether visuoconstructive or figural memory capacities might distinguish these patient populations. In this pilot case series, we investigated eight patients suffering from cognitive impairment associated with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)-based Alzheimer pathology (AP) and with verified anti-neural autoantibodies (AP Aab+) compared to eight AD patients presenting no autoantibodies (Aab-) (AD Aab-). Patients files were reviewed retrospectively regarding their neuropsychological profile assessed via the CERAD (Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease) test battery and psychopathology measured by the AMDP (Manual for the Assessment and Documentation of Psychopathology in Psychiatry) system. We also relied on diagnostic parameters as in the CSF and magnetic resonance images. All patients shared the same pattern of dysfunctional word-list learning and word-list recall resembling a hippocampus-dependent memory dysfunction. Furthermore, both patient groups revealed a CSF profile concurring with Alzheimer's disease. However, visuoconstructive capacity, but not figure recall was preserved in AP Aab+ patients, but not in AD Ab-patients with the shared hippocampus-based memory dysfunction. We observed no relevant differences between the AP Aab+ and AD Aab- groups in CSF cell-counts or intrathecal IgG synthesis. The relative frequency of hippocampal and focal atrophy did not differ either between AP Aab+ and AD Aab- groups. Our pilot findings are encouraging us to conduct large-scale studies to replicate our discovery of preserved visuoconstruction in AP Aab+ patients with hippocampus-based memory dysfunction. The role of anti-neural autoantibodies is still not fully understood. The detection of these autoantibodies might imply another disease pathology that could be either neuroprotective or be affecting other brain regions, i.e., less pronounced disease activity in the right temporo-parietal regions mainly involved in visuoconstruction.

Nivolumab-induced radiation recall pneumonitis in non-small-cell lung cancer patients with thoracic radiation therapy.

The role of previous thoracic radiation therapy as a risk factor of immune-related pneumonitis is unclear. Furthermore, some patients develop radiation recall pneumonitis, which is characterized by a radiation pneumonitis-like imaging pattern with consolidation progressing within a previous radiation field. In this multicenter retrospective study, we analyzed the relationship of previous thoracic radiation therapy with immune-related pneumonitis and the characteristics of radiation recall pneumonitis. The medical records of patients with non-small-cell lung cancer who had received nivolumab between December 2015 and March 2017 at five institutions were retrospectively reviewed. Incidence, imaging patterns, clinical course, and risk factors of immune-related pneumonitis and radiation recall pneumonitis were evaluated. A total of 669 patients were evaluated, and the incidences of all-grade and grade 3 or higher immune-related pneumonitis were 8.8% and 2.6%, respectively. The incidences of immune-related pneumonitis were 13.2% (34/257) and 6.1% (25/412) in patients with and those without previous thoracic radiation therapy, respectively. A history of previous thoracic radiation therapy was associated with immune-related pneumonitis (odds ratio, 2.11; 95% confidence interval, 1.21-3.69 in multivariate analysis). Among the patients with previous thoracic radiation therapy, 6.2% (16/257) showed radiation recall pattern. This study found an increased risk of nivolumab-induced immune-related pneumonitis associated with a history of thoracic radiation therapy. Radiation recall pattern was one of the major patterns of immune-related pneumonitis among the patients with previous thoracic radiation therapy. Incidence, risk factors, and clinical outcome of radiation recall pneumonitis were elucidated.

Patterns of Screening Recall Behavior Among Subspecialty Breast Radiologists

Determine whether there are patterns of lesion recall among breast imaging subspecialists interpreting screening mammography, and if so, whether recall patterns correlate to morphologies of screen-detected cancers. This Institutional Review Board-approved, retrospective review included all screening examinations January 3, 2012-October 1, 2018 interpreted by fifteen breast imaging subspecialists at a large academic medical center and two outpatient imaging centers. Natural language processing identified radiologist recalls by lesion type (mass, calcifications, asymmetry, architectural distortion); proportions of callbacks by lesion types were calculated per radiologist. Hierarchical cluster analysis grouped radiologists based on recall patterns. Groups were compared to overall practice and each other by proportions of lesion types recalled, and overall and lesion-specific positive predictive value-1 (PPV1). Among 161,859 screening mammograms with 13,086 (8.1%) recalls, Hierarchical cluster analysis grouped 15 radiologists into five groups. There was substantial variation in proportions of lesions recalled: calcifications 13%-18% (Chi-square 45.69, p < 0.00001); mass 16%-44% (Chi-square 498.42, p < 0.00001); asymmetry 13%-47% (Chi-square 660.93, p < 0.00001) architectural distortion 6%-20% (Chi-square 283.81, p < 0.00001). Radiologist groups differed significantly in overall PPV1 (range 5.6%-8.8%; Chi-square 17.065, p=0.0019). PPV1 by lesion type varied among groups: calcifications 9.2%-15.4% (Chi-square 2.56, p=0.6339); mass 5.6%-8.5% (Chi-square 1.31, p=0.8597); asymmetry 3.4%-5.9% (Chi-square 2.225, p=0.6945); architectural distortion 5.6%-10.8% (Chi-square 5.810, p=0.2138). Proportions of recalled lesions did not consistently correlate to proportions of screen-detected cancer. Breast imaging subspecialists have patterns for screening mammography recalls, suggesting differential weighting of imaging findings for perceived malignant potential. Radiologist recall patterns are not always predictive of screen-detected cancers nor lesion-specific PPV1s.

Recall Pattern, Theme, and Occurrence Time of Events Based on Emotional Valence of Important Life Events in Older Adults

Recall Pattern, Theme, and Occurrence Time of Events Based on Emotional Valence of Important Life Events in Older Adults

Memory Recall Bias of Overconfident and Underconfident Individuals after Feedback

We experimentally investigate the memory recall bias of overconfident (underconfident) individuals after receiving feedback on their overconfidence (underconfidence). Our study differs from the literature by identifying the recall pattern conditional on subjects’ overconfidence/underconfidence. We obtain the following results. First, overconfident (underconfident) subjects exhibit overconfident (underconfident) recall despite receiving feedback on their overconfidence (underconfidence). Second, awareness of one’s overconfidence or underconfidence does not eliminate memory recall bias. Third, the primacy effect is stronger than the recency effect. Overall, our results suggest that memory recall bias is mainly due to motivated beliefs of sophisticated decision makers rather than naïve decision-making.

Reprint of: Order of recall and meaning of closeness in collecting affective network data

The paper investigates how study participants handle the so-called “hierarchical mapping technique”, an affective name generator developed by Antonucci (1986), which is accompanied by a diagram enabling respondents to compare alters with regard to different degrees of closeness. By applying the thinking-aloud method, we identified three patterns in the order of recalling alters: closeness as overarching schema (with either role relationships or relationship properties as subordinate schema), roles and foci as overarching schema, and a fraying schema. In addition, we investigated how study participants understand and interpret “closeness”. The meanings of closeness can refer to various relationship properties, cultural framing, and relationship dynamics. Results show that specific meanings of closeness are related to different recall patterns. Furthermore, recall patterns vary according to the socio-economic status of the participants. Finally, implications for the construction of name generators and data collection are discussed.

CEO Tenure and Recall Risk Management in the Consumer Products Industry

Firms dread product recalls. Consequently, firm leaders may take steps to avoid recalls when possible, or to avoid the blame for them when there is someone else to blame. We analyze how the appointment of a new chief executive officer (CEO) for a firm in the consumer product industry influences the hazard of subsequent recalls initiated by that firm. Using 25 years of consumer product industry data, including 125 publicly traded firms that experienced 307 new CEOs and 584 voluntary recalls from 1992 to 2016, we find a unique recall pattern following new CEO appointments. The hazard of a recall is high immediately following a new CEO appointment, and then decreases significantly until the next CEO is appointed. We contend that the high hazard of a recall early in CEO tenure may be due to the attribution of blame to the prior CEO. We find evidence to support this contention by showing that the increase in recalls is even higher when the prior CEO was forced out. We also propose that the low hazard of a recall later in CEO tenure may be explained by recalls that can be more easily hidden, allowing them to go unannounced. We find evidence supporting this contention by showing that the decrease in recalls late in a CEO's tenure is stronger when recalls are more discretionary. We conclude with one firm governance recommendation and four regulatory policy recommendations for the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Order of recall and meaning of closeness in collecting affective network data

The paper investigates how study participants handle the so-called “hierarchical mapping technique”, an affective name generator developed by Antonucci (1986), which is accompanied by a diagram enabling respondents to compare alters with regard to different degrees of closeness. By applying the thinking-aloud method, we identified three patterns in the order of recalling alters: closeness as overarching schema (with either role relationships or relationship properties as subordinate schema), roles and foci as overarching schema, and a fraying schema. In addition, we investigated how study participants understand and interpret “closeness”. The meanings of closeness can refer to various relationship properties, cultural framing, and relationship dynamics. Results show that specific meanings of closeness are related to different recall patterns. Furthermore, recall patterns vary according to the socio-economic status of the participants. Finally, implications for the construction of name generators and data collection are discussed.