Dubé Chad, Payne Lisa, Sekuler Robert, Rotello Caren M
1Department of Psychology, University of South Florida.
Psychol Sci. 2013 Dec;24(12):2398-408. doi: 10.1177/0956797613492426. Epub 2013 Oct 1.
Reliance on remembered facts or events requires memory for their sources, that is, the contexts in which those facts or events were embedded. Understanding of source retrieval has been stymied by the fact that uncontrolled fluctuations of attention during encoding can cloud results of key importance to theoretical development. To address this issue, we combined electrophysiology (high-density electroencephalogram, EEG, recordings) with computational modeling of behavioral results. We manipulated subjects' attention to an auditory attribute, whether the source of individual study words was a male or female speaker. Posterior alpha-band (8-14 Hz) power in subjects' EEG increased after a cue to ignore the voice of the person who was about to speak. Receiver-operating-characteristic analysis validated our interpretation of oscillatory dynamics as a marker of attention to source information. With attention under experimental control, computational modeling showed unequivocally that memory for source (male or female speaker) reflected a continuous signal detection process rather than a threshold recollection process.
对记忆事实或事件的依赖需要对其来源进行记忆，也就是说，这些事实或事件所嵌入的背景。由于编码过程中注意力的不受控制的波动会模糊对理论发展至关重要的结果，对来源检索的理解一直受到阻碍。为了解决这个问题，我们将电生理学（高密度脑电图，EEG，记录）与行为结果的计算模型相结合。我们操纵受试者对听觉属性的注意力，即单个学习单词的来源是男性还是女性说话者。在提示忽略即将说话的人的声音后，受试者脑电图中的后阿尔法波段（8-14赫兹）功率增加。接受者操作特征分析验证了我们将振荡动力学解释为对来源信息的注意力标记的观点。在实验控制的注意力条件下，计算模型明确表明，对来源（男性或女性说话者）的记忆反映了一个连续的信号检测过程，而不是一个阈值回忆过程。
