Electrophysiological evidence for dissociable processes contributing to recollection
Introduction
This paper reviews some of the recent research from our laboratory in which event-related brain potentials (ERPs) are used to study processes engaged by variants of tests of recognition and cued recall. The research has been guided by the framework developed over the past few years by Jacoby and his colleagues (e.g. Kelley and Jacoby, in press), and its results speak to several issues relevant to that framework.
Section snippets
Event-related potentials
Recent introductions to cognitive ERPs can be found in Picton et al. (1995); Rugg and Coles, 1995a, Rugg and Coles, 1995balso provide a detailed discussion of the assumptions underlying the use of ERPs in cognitive psychology. Briefly, ERPs represent scalp-recorded changes in the brain's electrical activity (the electroencephalogram or EEG) time-locked to some definable event such as the presentation of a word. The magnitude of these changes is typically small in comparison to the amplitude of
ERPs and memory
In this section, we restrict discussion to previous ERP studies of recognition memory, which provide the background to our more recent research on retrieval processes in direct memory tests. More comprehensive and detailed reviews of the ERP memory research conducted over the past 20 years or so can be found in Johnson (1995)and Rugg (1995a).
Numerous studies have demonstrated that ERPs elicited by words presented in tests of recognition memory differ according to the words' study status (see
Source memory
Source memory refers to memory for attributes of a study episode such as its spatiotemporal context, and the format or modality in which study items were presented. The accurate retrieval of such information is a hallmark of recollection; indeed, the application of Jacoby's process dissociation procedure to recognition memory (e.g. Jacoby, 1991) is predicated on a definition of recollection as the ability to retrieve and make use of contextual (source) information.
In light of these
Associative recall
In the studies described in the foregoing section recollection was operationalised as the ability to retrieve information about the context in which a recognised test item was studied. As already noted, this way of defining recollection has underpinned several applications of the process dissociation procedure to the study of recognition memory. In the two studies described in this section, recollection was operationalised as the ability to retrieve information that had been intentionally
Cued recall
In the direct memory test of word stem cued recall, studied items (e.g. LOVELY) must be recalled with the aid of a three-letter word-stem (e.g. LOV__). This test has frequently been employed as a means of assessing explicit (recollective) memory. It has been convincingly demonstrated, however, that performance on cued recall tests reflects the influence not only of the conscious recollection of the study item, but also of implicit processes (priming) that act to increase the probability of
Discussion
In this section, we discuss a number of general issues that arise out of the findings of the different studies reviewed above. The first issue concerns the question of whether there is a distinct ERP `signature' for recollection. This question is important because it bears on the issue of whether recollection is best thought of as functionally homogeneous, or whether instead it should be regarded as the outcome of multiple processes, the relative contributions of which are task-dependent. As
ERPs, familiarity and implicit memory
We have yet to find evidence for an ERP correlate of either familiarity-driven recognition memory or implicit memory. For instance, ERPs associated with recognition judgements made in the absence of recollection (as defined by a failure of source memory) differed only quantitatively from those associated with recognition accompanied by successful recollection. As noted originally by Wilding and Rugg (1996), these findings could be taken as evidence against the idea that recognition has two
Time-course of ERP memory effects
In all of the studies described above, reliable differences between ERPs elicited by recollected and new items onset between about 350–450 ms post-stimulus onset. This places an upper-bound on the time required by the brain to discriminate between these classes of item, and suggests that processing specific to recollective memory begins well within half a second. Precisely when during the course of this processing recollection can be said to have occurred is at present impossible to say, and
Generators of ERP memory effects
A final issue to be discussed concerns the locations of the intracerebral generators of the ERP effects we have described. As already noted in the introduction, it is not possible at present to address this issue by much more than informed speculation. In the case of the effects observed during cued recall even this is of questionable value until more is known about the likely number of sources that contribute to the effects, and the variables that permit them to be functionally dissociated (
Unlinked References
Rugg et al., 1995
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a Wellcome Trust Programme Grant and studentships from the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust. K. Allan is currently supported by a grant from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. E.L. Wilding is currently supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Medical Research Council.
References (50)
- et al.
An event-related potential study of word-stem cued recall
Cognitive Brain Research
(1996) - et al.
An event-related potential study of explicit memory on tests of word-stem cued recall and recognition memory
Neuropsychologia
(1997) - et al.
The functional neuroanatomy of episodic memory
Trends in Neurosciences
(1997) A process dissociation framework: Separating automatic from intentional uses of memory
Journal of Memory and Language
(1991)- et al.
Event-related potentials and the recollection of low and high frequency words
Neuropsychologia
(1995) - et al.
Event-related potentials and the recollection of associative information
Cognitive Brain Research
(1996) - et al.
Recognition memory with and without retrieval of context: an event-related potential study
Neuropsychologia
(1995) - et al.
Event-related potentials and the recognition memory exclusion task
Neuropsychologia
(1997) - et al.
An event-related potential study of memory for words spoken aloud or heard
Neuropsychologia
(1997) - et al.
Noncriterial recollection: Familiarity as automatic, irrelevant recollection
Consciousness and Cognition
(1996)
Recollective experience in word and non-word recognition
Memory and Cognition
Identifying the basis for the word-frequency effect in recognition memory
Memory
On the relationship between autobiographical memory and perceptual learning
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
Separating conscious and unconscious influences of memory: Measuring recollection
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
Source monitoring
Psychological Bulletin
Functional role of the prefrontal cortex in retrieval of memories – a PET study
Neuroreport
Direct versus indirect tests of memory for source: judgements of modality
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition
Recognising: The judgement of previous occurrence
Psychological Review
Why are there complementary learning systems in the hippocampus and neocortex: insights from the successes and failures of connectionist models of learning and memory
Psychological Review
Cited by (197)
No other race effect (ORE) for infant face recognition: A memory task
2020, NeuropsychologiaElaborately rehearsed information can be forgotten: A new paradigm to investigate directed forgetting
2019, Neurobiology of Learning and MemoryCitation Excerpt :Familiarity has been referred to as a memory process that supports recognition without the detailed information that is characteristic of recollection (Diana, Vilberg, & Reder, 2005; Gardiner, Gawlik, & Richardson-Klavehn, 1994). Previous recognition studies (Allan, Wilding, & Rugg, 1998; Düzel, Yonelinas, Mangun, Heinze, & Tulving, 1997; Mecklinger, 2000) have found that the correctly recognized old items evoked more positive ERPs relative to the correctly rejected new words, and this phenomenon was termed as ERP old/new effect. Based on the temporal and topographical distributions, the frontal N400 (FN400) old/new effect and parietal LPC old/new effect were distinguished.
Forgetting cues are ineffective in promoting forgetting in the item-method directed forgetting paradigm
2019, International Journal of PsychophysiologyCitation Excerpt :This enhanced frontal activity might reflect an attentional inhibition process triggered by forgetting cues. Recognition studies have reported that correctly recognized, old items evoke more positive ERPs than correctly rejected new items, a phenomenon which has been termed the ERP old/new effect (Allan et al., 1998; Düzel et al., 1997; Mecklinger, 2000). An early (300–500 ms), mid-frontal, negative ERP old/new effect which was termed as FN400 old/new effect is related to familiarity, and the LPC (late positive component) old/new effect, which appears 500–800 ms after stimulus presentation and is maximum distributed over the parietal scalp, has been associated with the recollection process (Friedman and Johnson, 2000; Jäger et al., 2006; Rugg and Curran, 2007).
On the sensitivity of event-related fields to recollection and familiarity
2018, Brain and Cognition