Sweegers Carly C G, Talamini Lucia M
Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Cortex. 2014 Oct;59:49-61. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2014.07.006. Epub 2014 Jul 24.
The storage of input regularities, at all levels of processing complexity, is a fundamental property of the nervous system. At high levels of complexity, this may involve the extraction of associative regularities between higher order entities such as objects, concepts and environments across events that are separated in space and time. We propose that such a mechanism provides an important route towards the formation of higher order semantic knowledge. The present study assessed whether subjects were able to extract complex regularities from multiple associative memories and whether they could generalize this regularity knowledge to new items. We used a memory task in which subjects were required to learn face-location associations, but in which certain facial features were predictive of locations. We assessed generalization, as well as memory for arbitrary stimulus components, over a 4-h post-encoding consolidation period containing wakefulness or sleep. We also assessed the stability of regularity knowledge across a period of several weeks thereafter. We found that subjects were able to detect the regularity structure and use it in a generalization task. Interestingly, the performance on this task increased across the 4hr post-learning period. However, no differential effects of cerebral sleep and wake states during this interval were observed. Furthermore, it was found that regularity extraction hampered the storage of arbitrary facial features, resulting in an impoverished memory trace. Finally, across a period of several weeks, memory for the regularity structure appeared very robust whereas memory for arbitrary associations showed steep forgetting. The current findings improve our understanding of how regularities across memories impact memory (trans)formation.
在所有处理复杂程度的层面上，输入规律的存储都是神经系统的一项基本特性。在高度复杂的层面上，这可能涉及在诸如跨越时空分离事件中的物体、概念和环境等高阶实体之间提取关联规律。我们提出，这样一种机制为高阶语义知识的形成提供了一条重要途径。本研究评估了受试者是否能够从多个关联记忆中提取复杂规律，以及他们是否能够将这种规律知识推广到新的项目上。我们使用了一项记忆任务，要求受试者学习面部与位置的关联，但其中某些面部特征可预测位置。我们在包含清醒或睡眠的4小时编码后巩固期内评估了推广能力以及对任意刺激成分的记忆。此后，我们还评估了数周内规律知识的稳定性。我们发现受试者能够检测到规律结构并在推广任务中加以运用。有趣的是，在学习后的4小时内，这项任务的表现有所提高。然而，在此期间未观察到大脑睡眠和清醒状态的差异效应。此外，还发现规律提取阻碍了任意面部特征的存储，导致记忆痕迹贫乏。最后，在数周的时间里，对规律结构的记忆显得非常稳固，而对任意关联的记忆则出现了急剧遗忘。当前的研究结果增进了我们对跨记忆规律如何影响记忆（转）变的理解。
