Yacoby Amnon, Dudai Yadin, Mendelsohn Avi
Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science Rehovot, Israel.
Sagol Department of Neurobiology, University of Haifa Haifa, Israel.
Front Behav Neurosci. 2015 Feb 9;9:20. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2015.00020. eCollection 2015.
Reactivation of long-term memory can render the memory item temporarily labile, offering an opportunity to modify it via behavioral or pharmacological intervention. Declarative memory reactivation is accompanied by a metamemory ability to subjectively assess the knowledge available concerning the target item (Feeling of knowing, FOK). We set out to examine whether FOK can predict the extent of change of long-term episodic memories by post-retrieval manipulations. To this end, participants watched a short movie and were immediately thereafter tested on their memory for it. A day later, they were reminded of that movie, and either immediately or 1 day later, were presented with a second movie. The reminder phase consisted of memory cues to which participants were asked to judge their FOK regarding the original movie. The memory performance of participants to whom new information was presented immediately after reactivating the original episode corresponded to the degree of FOK ratings upon reactivation such that the lower their FOK, the less their memory declined. In contrast, no relation was found between FOK and memory strength for those who learned new information 1 day after the reminder phase. Our findings suggest that the subjective accessibility of reactivated memories may determine the extent to which new information might modify those memories.
长期记忆的重新激活会使记忆项目暂时变得不稳定，从而提供了一个通过行为或药理学干预对其进行修改的机会。陈述性记忆重新激活伴随着一种元记忆能力，即主观评估与目标项目相关的现有知识（知晓感，FOK）。我们着手研究FOK是否能够预测检索后操作对长期情景记忆的改变程度。为此，参与者观看了一部短片，随后立即对他们对该短片的记忆进行测试。一天后，他们被提醒该短片，并且在立即或1天后观看第二部短片。提醒阶段包括记忆线索，要求参与者对关于原始短片的FOK进行判断。在重新激活原始情节后立即呈现新信息的参与者的记忆表现与重新激活时的FOK评分程度相对应，即他们的FOK越低，记忆下降越少。相比之下，对于那些在提醒阶段1天后学习新信息的人，未发现FOK与记忆强度之间存在关联。我们的研究结果表明，重新激活记忆的主观可及性可能决定新信息对这些记忆的修改程度。
