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Using Practice Testing, Public Speaking, and Source Monitoring to Examine the Influences of Learning Strategies and Stress on Episodic Memory

Prior research demonstrated that learning information via retrieval practice, which entails studying and taking practice tests, resulted in less memory ...

Tufts University

Learned associations between stimuli and responses (S-R associations) make important contributions to behavioral and neural priming. The current study investigated the automaticity and flexibility of these S-R associations and whether the global task context in which they occur modulates the impact of S-R retrieval on priming. Participants engaged in a semantic repetition priming task in which S-R retrieval is known to influence priming. Across participants, repetition priming occurred in global task contexts (i.e., combination of activated task sets) that either remained consistent or shifted across time. In the stable context group, the global task context at study matched that at test, whereas in the shifting context group, the global task context at study differed from that at test. Results revealed that the stability of the global task context did not affect the magnitude of S-R contributions to priming and that S-R contributions to priming were significant in both the stable and shifting context groups. These results highlight the robustness of S-R contributions to priming and indicate that S-R associations can flexibly transfer across changes in higher-level task states.

Automaticity and Flexibility of S-R Retrieval During Priming.

Learned associations between stimuli and responses make important contributions to priming. The current study aimed to determine whether medial temporal lobe (MTL) binding mechanisms mediate this learning. Prior studies implicating the MTL in stimulus-response (S-R) learning have not isolated associative learning at the response level from associative learning at other levels of representation (e.g., task sets or decisions). The current study investigated whether the MTL is specifically involved in associative learning at the response level by testing a group of amnesic patients with MTL damage on a priming paradigm that isolates associative learning at the response level. Patients demonstrated intact priming when associative learning was isolated to the stimulus-response level. In contrast, their priming was reduced when associations between stimuli and more abstract representations (e.g., stimulus-task or stimulus-decision associations) could contribute to performance. These results provide novel neuropsychological evidence that S-R contributions to priming can be supported by regions outside the MTL, and suggest that the MTL may play a critical role in linking stimuli to more abstract tasks or decisions during priming.

Repetition priming in amnesia: Distinguishing associative learning at different levels of abstraction.

Episodic future thinking depends on a core network of regions that involves, in addition to the medial temporal lobes (MTL), the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Neuroimaging studies suggest that vmPFC is particularly involved when future thinking requires consideration of self-relevant information, but lesion evidence for a special role of vmPFC in constructing self-relevant scenarios is limited. To clarify the involvement of vmPFC in future thinking, eight patients with vmPFC lesions were asked to imagine future events pertaining to the self or to another person, and their performance was contrasted with that of eight patients with MTL lesions. Patients with vmPFC lesions were no more detailed in their description of future events pertaining to the self than of events pertaining to another person. In contrast, like controls, patients with MTL lesions showed a self-benefit, despite impoverished performance overall. These findings accord with evidence from neuroimaging studies and elucidate the distinct contributions of vmPFC and MTL to future thinking.

Elizabeth Race

Department of Psychology

Tufts University

Using Practice Testing, Public Speaking, and Source Monitoring to Examine the Influences of Learning Strategies and Stress on Episodic Memory

Elizabeth Race

.css-o250i3{font-size:18px;font-family:Open Sans,sans-serif;line-height:21.6px;}Department of Psychology

Tufts University

Using Practice Testing, Public Speaking, and Source Monitoring to Examine the Influences of Learning Strategies and Stress on Episodic Memory

Department of Psychology