Wittkuhn Lennart, Krippner Lena M, Koch Christoph, Schuck Nicolas W
Department of Cognitive Neuroscience for Learning and Change, Institute of Psychology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg 20146, Germany.
Max Planck Research Group NeuroCode, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin 14195, Germany.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2025 Aug 26;122(34):e2507516122. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2507516122. Epub 2025 Aug 22.
Humans can implicitly learn about multistep sequential relationships between events in the environment from their statistical co-occurrence. Theoretical work has suggested that neural replay is a candidate mechanism that aids such learning. Here, we used functional MRI (fMRI) to test whether replay is related to implicit learning of higher-order sequential relationships. Human participants viewed sequences of images that followed probabilistic transitions determined by ring-like graph structures. Behavioral modeling of response times revealed that participants acquired multistep transition knowledge in a manner consistent with gradual updating of an internal successor representation (SR) model. Yet, half of participants did not report being aware of any sequential task structure, and most participants failed to provide meaningful transition probability ratings in a posttask test. Analyses of temporal dynamics of multivariate fMRI patterns during brief 10 s pauses from the ongoing statistical learning task indicated backward sequential replay of multistep sequences in visual cortical areas. Variations in model parameters between participants that captured response time patterns related to strength of neural replay. No corresponding relations between replay and measures of explicit awareness were found. These findings indicate that implicit learning of higher-order relationships establishes an internal SR-based map of the task and is accompanied by cortical on-task replay.
人类可以从环境中事件的统计共现中隐式地学习多步顺序关系。理论研究表明，神经回放是有助于这种学习的一种可能机制。在此，我们使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）来测试回放是否与高阶顺序关系的隐式学习有关。人类参与者观看了遵循由环状图结构确定的概率转换的图像序列。对反应时间的行为建模表明，参与者以与内部后继表征（SR）模型的逐步更新相一致的方式获得了多步转换知识。然而，一半的参与者表示没有意识到任何顺序任务结构，并且大多数参与者在任务后测试中未能提供有意义的转换概率评级。对正在进行的统计学习任务中短暂10秒暂停期间多变量fMRI模式的时间动态分析表明，视觉皮层区域存在多步序列的反向顺序回放。参与者之间模型参数的变化捕捉到了与神经回放强度相关的反应时间模式。未发现回放与明确意识测量之间的相应关系。这些发现表明，高阶关系的隐式学习建立了基于内部SR的任务地图，并伴随着皮层任务中的回放。
