Memory in time: electrophysiological comparison between reality filtering and temporal order judgment

Bridging the gap between believing and memory functions

Believing has recently been recognized as a fundamental brain function linking a person’s experience with his or her attitude, actions and predictions. In general, believing results from the integration of ambient information with emotions and can be reinforced or modulated in a probabilistic fashion by new experiences. Although these processes occur in the subliminal realm, humans can become aware of what they believe and express it verbally. We explain how believing is interwoven with memory functions in a multifaceted fashion. Linking the typically rapid and adequate reactions of a subject to what he/she believes is enabled by working memory. Perceptions are stored in episodic memory as beneficial or aversive events, while the corresponding verbal descriptions of what somebody believes are stored in semantic memory. After recall from memory of what someone believes, personally relevant information can be communicated to other people. Thus, memory is essential for maintaining what people believe.

P300-mediated modulations in self-other processing under psychedelic psilocybin are related to connectedness and changed meaning: A window into the self-other overlap

The concept of self and self‐referential processing has a growing explanatory value in psychiatry and neuroscience, referring to the cognitive organization and perceptual differentiation of self‐stimuli in health and disease. Conditions in which selfhood loses its natural coherence offer a unique opportunity for elucidating the mechanisms underlying self‐disturbances. We assessed the psychoactive effects of psilocybin (230 μg/kg p.o.), a preferential 5‐HT1A/2A agonist known to induce shifts in self‐perception. Our placebo‐controlled, double‐blind, within‐subject crossover experiment (n = 17) implemented a verbal self‐monitoring task involving vocalizations and participant identification of real‐time auditory source‐ (self/other) and pitch‐modulating feedback. Subjective experience and task performance were analyzed, with time‐point‐by‐time‐point assumption‐free multivariate randomization statistics applied to the spatiotemporal dynamics of event‐related potentials. Psilocybin‐modulated self‐experience, interacted with source to affect task accuracy, and altered the late phase of self‐stimuli encoding by abolishing the distinctiveness of self‐ and other‐related electric field configurations during the P300 timeframe. This last effect was driven by current source density changes within the supragenual anterior cingulate and right insular cortex. The extent of the P300 effect was associated with the intensity of psilocybin‐induced feelings of unity and changed meaning of percepts. Modulations of late encoding and their underlying neural generators in self‐referential processing networks via 5‐HT signaling may be key for understanding self‐disorders. This mechanism may reflect a neural instantiation of altered self–other and relational meaning processing in a stimulus‐locked time domain. The study elucidates the neuropharmacological foundation of subjectivity, with implications for therapy, underscoring the concept of connectedness.

Mnemonic monitoring in anosognosia for memory loss

OBJECTIVE

Anosognosia, or unawareness, for memory loss has been proposed to underlie cognitive functions such as memory and executive function. However, there is an inconsistent association between these constructs. Recent studies have shown that compromise ongoing self-monitoring of one's memory associates with anosognosia for memory loss. Yet to date it is unclear which memory monitoring mechanisms are impaired in these patients. In this study, we examined the extent to which temporal monitoring or orbitofrontal reality filtering (e.g., ability to monitor the temporal relevance of a memory) and source monitoring (e.g., the ability to distinguish which memories stem from internal as opposed to external sources) are associated with awareness of memory deficits.

METHOD

A total of 35 patients (M = 69 years; M = 14 years of education) with memory difficulties following a stroke were recruited from outpatient clinics. Patients were assessed with measures of self-awareness of memory difficulties, cognitive abilities and 2 experimental paradigms assessing source and temporal monitoring.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

Results showed that patients unaware of their memory difficulties were more likely to externalize the source of their memories. Specifically, those unaware of their deficits were more likely to assign an external source to memories that were internally produced (e.g., imagined). No differences were observed in relation to temporal monitoring between patients aware and unaware of their deficits. This study informs current theoretical models of self-awareness of memory loss. Future studies should attempt to replicate these findings and explore different memory monitoring mechanisms in relation to anosognosia for memory loss. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The Cognitive Mechanism of the Practice Effect of Time-Based Prospective Memory: The Role of Time Estimation

Remembering to perform delayed intentions at a specific time point or period is referred to as time-based prospective memory (TBPM). The practice effect of TBPM is the phenomenon that TBPM performance improves via repeated PM training. In the present study, our main purpose was to explore the cognitive mechanism of the practice effect of TBPM, specifically the role of time estimation in the practice effect. We adopted a simple retrospective component of TBPM (pressing 1 key) in the present study, facilitating a closer look at the role of time estimation. In Experiment 1, the experimental group received 20 TBPM tasks training and some ongoing tasks training, while the control group only received some ongoing tasks training. We found that TBPM and time estimation abilities of experimental group were all better than those of control group. It proved that the practice effect of TBPM was closely related to the improvement of time estimation ability. In Experiment 2, we used time estimation training instead of TBPM training used in Experiment 1. The results of Experiment 2 were basically the same as those of Experiment 1. It further confirmed that time estimation played a key role in the practice effect of TBPM.

From Believing to Belief: A General Theoretical Model

Cognitive neuroscience research has begun to explore the mental processes underlying what a belief and what believing are. Recent evidence suggests that believing involves fundamental brain functions that result in meaningful probabilistic representations, called beliefs. When relatively stable, these beliefs allow for guidance of behavior in individuals and social groups. However, they are also fluid and can be modified by new relevant information, interpersonal contact, social pressure, and situational demands. We present a theoretical model of believing that can account for the formation of both empirically grounded and metaphysical beliefs.

Processes of believing: Where do they come from? What are they good for?

Despite the long scholarly discourse in Western theology and philosophy on religion, spirituality, and faith, explanations of what a belief and what believing is are still lacking. Recently, cognitive neuroscience research addressed the human capacity of believing. We present evidence suggesting that believing is a human brain function which results in probabilistic representations with attributes of personal meaning and value and thereby guides individuals’ behavior. We propose that the same mental processes operating on narratives and rituals constitute belief systems in individuals and social groups. Our theoretical model of believing is suited to account for secular and non-secular belief formation.

Processes of believing: Where do they come from? What are they good for?

Despite the long scholarly discourse in Western theology and philosophy on religion, spirituality, and faith, explanations of what a belief and what believing is are still lacking. Recently, cognitive neuroscience research addressed the human capacity of believing. We present evidence suggesting that believing is a human brain function which results in probabilistic representations with attributes of personal meaning and value and thereby guides individuals' behavior. We propose that the same mental processes operating on narratives and rituals constitute belief systems in individuals and social groups. Our theoretical model of believing is suited to account for secular and non-secular belief formation.

No Influence of Positive Emotion on Orbitofrontal Reality Filtering: Relevance for Confabulation

Orbitofrontal reality filtering (ORFi) is a mechanism that allows us to keep thought and behavior in phase with reality. Its failure induces reality confusion with confabulation and disorientation. Confabulations have been claimed to have a positive emotional bias, suggesting that they emanate from a tendency to embellish the situation of a handicap. Here we tested the influence of positive emotion on ORFi in healthy subjects using a paradigm validated in reality confusing patients and with a known electrophysiological signature, a frontal positivity at 200-300 ms after memory evocation. Subjects made two continuous recognition tasks ("two runs"), composed of the same set of neutral and positive pictures, but arranged in different order. In both runs, participants had to indicate picture repetitions within, and only within, the ongoing run. The first run measures learning and recognition. The second run, where all items are familiar, requires ORFi to avoid false positive responses. High-density evoked potentials were recorded from 19 healthy subjects during completion of the task. Performance was more accurate and faster on neutral than positive pictures in both runs and for all conditions. Evoked potential correlates of emotion and reality filtering occurred at 260-350 ms but dissociated in terms of amplitude and topography. In both runs, positive stimuli evoked a more negative frontal potential than neutral ones. In the second run, the frontal positivity characteristic of reality filtering was separately, and to the same degree, expressed for positive and neutral stimuli. We conclude that ORFi, the ability to place oneself correctly in time and space, is not influenced by emotional positivity of the processed material.

[Formula: see text]Children's sense of reality: The development of orbitofrontal reality filtering

Orbitofrontal reality filtering denotes a memory control mechanism necessary to keep thought and behavior in phase with reality. In adults, it is mediated by the orbitofrontal cortex and subcortical connections and its failure induces reality confusion, confabulations, and disorientation. Here we investigated for the first time the development of this mechanism in 83 children from ages 7 to 11 years and 20 adults. We used an adapted version of a continuous recognition task composed of two runs with the same picture set but arranged in different order. The first run measures storage and recognition capacity (item memory), the second run measures reality filtering. We found that accuracy and reaction times in response to all stimulus types of the task improved in parallel across ages. Importantly, at no age was there a notable performance drop in the second run. This means that reality filtering was already efficacious at age 7 and then steadily improved as item memory became stronger. At the age of 11 years, reality filtering dissociated from item memory, similar to the pattern observed in adults. However, performance in 11-year-olds was still inferior as compared to adults. The study shows that reality filtering develops early in childhood and becomes more efficacious as memory capacity increases. For the time being, it remains unresolved, however, whether this function already depends on the orbitofrontal cortex, as it does in adults, or on different brain structures in the developing brains of children.

A Neuropsychological Approach to Auditory Verbal Hallucinations and Thought Insertion - Grounded in Normal Voice Perception

A neuropsychological perspective on auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) links key phenomenological features of the experience, such as voice location and identity, to functionally separable pathways in normal human audition. Although this auditory processing stream (APS) framework has proven valuable for integrating research on phenomenology with cognitive and neural accounts of hallucinatory experiences, it has not yet been applied to other symptoms presumed to be closely related to AVH – such as thought insertion (TI). In this paper, I propose that an APS framework offers a useful way of thinking about the experience of TI as well as AVH, providing a common conceptual framework for both. I argue that previous self-monitoring theories struggle to account for both the differences and similarities in the characteristic features of AVH and TI, which can be readily accommodated within an APS framework. Furthermore, the APS framework can be integrated with predictive processing accounts of psychotic symptoms; makes predictions about potential sites of prediction error signals; and may offer a template for understanding a range of other symptoms beyond AVH and TI.