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Leroy N, Majerus S, D'Argembeau A. Working memory capacity for continuous events: The root of temporal compression in episodic memory? Cognition 2024; 247:105789. [PMID: 38583322 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105789] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/04/2023] [Revised: 02/05/2024] [Accepted: 04/01/2024] [Indexed: 04/09/2024]
Abstract
Remembering the unfolding of past episodes usually takes less time than their actual duration. In this study, we evaluated whether such temporal compression emerges when continuous events are too long to be fully held in working memory. To do so, we asked 90 young adults to watch and mentally replay video clips showing people performing a continuous action (e.g., turning a car jack) that lasted 3, 6, 9, 12, or 15 s. For each clip, participants had to carefully watch the event and then to mentally replay it as accurately and precisely as possible. Results showed that mental replay durations increased with event duration but in a non-linear manner: they were close to the actual event duration for short videos (3-9 s), but significantly smaller for longer videos (12 and 15 s). These results suggest that working memory is temporally limited in its capacity to represent continuous events, which could in part explain why the unfolding of events is temporally compressed in episodic memory.
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2
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Wang YC, Adcock RA, Egner T. Toward an integrative account of internal and external determinants of event segmentation. Psychon Bull Rev 2024; 31:484-506. [PMID: 37698807 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-023-02375-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 08/22/2023] [Indexed: 09/13/2023]
Abstract
Our daily experiences unfold continuously, but we remember them as a series of discrete events through a process called event segmentation. Prominent theories of event segmentation suggest that event boundaries in memory are triggered by significant shifts in the external environment, such as a change in one's physical surroundings. In this review, we argue for a fundamental extension of this research field to also encompass internal state changes as playing a key role in structuring event memory. Accordingly, we propose an expanded taxonomy of event boundary-triggering processes, and review behavioral and neuroscience research on internal state changes in three core domains: affective states, goal states, and motivational states. Finally, we evaluate how well current theoretical frameworks can accommodate the unique and interactive contributions of internal states to event memory. We conclude that a theoretical perspective on event memory that integrates both external environment and internal state changes allows for a more complete understanding of how the brain structures experiences, with important implications for future research in cognitive and clinical neuroscience.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuxi Candice Wang
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.
- Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Levine Science Research Center Box 90999, Durham, NC, 27708, USA.
| | - R Alison Adcock
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
- Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Levine Science Research Center Box 90999, Durham, NC, 27708, USA
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
- Department of Neurobiology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
| | - Tobias Egner
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
- Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Levine Science Research Center Box 90999, Durham, NC, 27708, USA
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3
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van Manen M. A Lasting Impression: Exploring the Meaningfulness of a Singular Moment. QUALITATIVE HEALTH RESEARCH 2024; 34:380-385. [PMID: 38009846 PMCID: PMC10996297 DOI: 10.1177/10497323231201254] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2023]
Abstract
How do we explore the meaning and meaningfulness of a singular event that lives on with us as a lasting impression? What are the initial beginnings and final endings of such living moments? How do we make sense of the significance of events that are so meaningful that they have become a lasting impression. This paper focuses on the phenomenology of such lasting impressions, by drawing on an exemplary anecdote about parental bereavement in newborn intensive care. The phenomenological intent is to determine the depth and magnitude of moments that as healthcare providers we may all too easily miss. As well, the methodological intent is to show how as researchers we can engage in a qualitative manner with empirically obtained experiential material.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael van Manen
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
- John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
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4
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Miller TD, Kennard C, Gowland PA, Antoniades CA, Rosenthal CR. Differential effects of bilateral hippocampal CA3 damage on the implicit learning and recognition of complex event sequences. Cogn Neurosci 2024; 15:27-55. [PMID: 38384107 DOI: 10.1080/17588928.2024.2315818] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/12/2023] [Accepted: 01/25/2024] [Indexed: 02/23/2024]
Abstract
Learning regularities in the environment is a fundament of human cognition, which is supported by a network of brain regions that include the hippocampus. In two experiments, we assessed the effects of selective bilateral damage to human hippocampal subregion CA3, which was associated with autobiographical episodic amnesia extending ~50 years prior to the damage, on the ability to recognize complex, deterministic event sequences presented either in a spatial or a non-spatial configuration. In contrast to findings from related paradigms, modalities, and homologue species, hippocampal damage did not preclude recognition memory for an event sequence studied and tested at four spatial locations, whereas recognition memory for an event sequence presented at a single location was at chance. In two additional experiments, recognition memory for novel single-items was intact, whereas the ability to recognize novel single-items in a different location from that presented at study was at chance. The results are at variance with a general role of the hippocampus in the learning and recognition of complex event sequences based on non-adjacent spatial and temporal dependencies. We discuss the impact of the results on established theoretical accounts of the hippocampal contributions to implicit sequence learning and episodic memory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Thomas D Miller
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, London, UK
- National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London, UK
| | - Christopher Kennard
- Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Penny A Gowland
- Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
| | | | - Clive R Rosenthal
- Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
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5
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Wang J, Lapate RC. Emotional state dynamics impacts temporal memory. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2023.07.25.550412. [PMID: 38464043 PMCID: PMC10925226 DOI: 10.1101/2023.07.25.550412] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/12/2024]
Abstract
Emotional fluctuations are ubiquitous in everyday life, but precisely how they sculpt the temporal organization of memories remains unclear. Here, we designed a novel task-the Emotion Boundary Task-wherein participants viewed sequences of negative and neutral images surrounded by a color border. We manipulated perceptual context (border color), emotional valence, as well as the direction of emotional-valence shifts (i.e., shifts from neutral-to-negative and negative-to-neutral events) to create encoding events comprised of image sequences with a shared perceptual and/or emotional context. We measured memory for temporal order and subjectively remembered temporal distances for images processed within and across events. Negative images processed within events were remembered as closer in time compared to neutral ones. In contrast, temporal distance was remembered as longer for images spanning neutral-to-negative shifts-suggesting temporal dilation in memory with the onset of a negative event following a previously-neutral state. The extent of this negative-picture induced temporal dilation in memory correlated with dispositional negativity across individuals. Lastly, temporal order memory was enhanced for recently presented negative (compared to neutral) images. These findings suggest that emotional-state dynamics matters when considering emotion-temporal memory interactions: While persistent negative events may compress subjectively remembered time, dynamic shifts from neutral to negative events produce temporal dilation in memory, which may be relevant for adaptive emotional functioning.
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6
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Bein O, Davachi L. Event Integration and Temporal Differentiation: How Hierarchical Knowledge Emerges in Hippocampal Subfields through Learning. J Neurosci 2024; 44:e0627232023. [PMID: 38129134 PMCID: PMC10919070 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.0627-23.2023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/05/2023] [Revised: 11/10/2023] [Accepted: 11/16/2023] [Indexed: 12/23/2023] Open
Abstract
Everyday life is composed of events organized by changes in contexts, with each event containing an unfolding sequence of occurrences. A major challenge facing our memory systems is how to integrate sequential occurrences within events while also maintaining their details and avoiding over-integration across different contexts. We asked if and how distinct hippocampal subfields come to hierarchically and, in parallel, represent both event context and subevent occurrences with learning. Female and male human participants viewed sequential events defined as sequences of objects superimposed on shared color frames while undergoing high-resolution fMRI. Importantly, these events were repeated to induce learning. Event segmentation, as indexed by increased reaction times at event boundaries, was observed in all repetitions. Temporal memory decisions were quicker for items from the same event compared to across different events, indicating that events shaped memory. With learning, hippocampal CA3 multivoxel activation patterns clustered to reflect the event context, with more clustering correlated with behavioral facilitation during event transitions. In contrast, in the dentate gyrus (DG), temporally proximal items that belonged to the same event became associated with more differentiated neural patterns. A computational model explained these results by dynamic inhibition in the DG. Additional similarity measures support the notion that CA3 clustered representations reflect shared voxel populations, while DG's distinct item representations reflect different voxel populations. These findings suggest an interplay between temporal differentiation in the DG and attractor dynamics in CA3. They advance our understanding of how knowledge is structured through integration and separation across time and context.
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Affiliation(s)
- Oded Bein
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
| | - Lila Davachi
- Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027
- Center for Clinical Research, The Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, Orangeburg, New York 10962
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7
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Smith ME, Loschky LC, Bailey HR. Eye movements and event segmentation: Eye movements reveal age-related differences in event model updating. Psychol Aging 2024; 39:180-187. [PMID: 37650795 PMCID: PMC10902178 DOI: 10.1037/pag0000773] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/01/2023]
Abstract
People spontaneously segment continuous ongoing actions into sequences of events. Prior research found that gaze similarity and pupil dilation increase at event boundaries and that older adults segment more idiosyncratically than do young adults. We used eye tracking to explore age-related differences in gaze similarity (i.e., the extent to which individuals look at the same places at the same time as others) and pupil dilation at event boundaries. Older and young adults watched naturalistic videos of actors performing everyday activities while we tracked their eye movements. Afterward, they segmented the videos into subevents. Replicating prior work, we found that pupil size and gaze similarity increased at event boundaries. Thus, there were fewer individual differences in eye position at boundaries. We also found that young adults had higher gaze similarity than older adults throughout an entire video and at event boundaries. This study is the first to show that age-related differences in how people parse continuous everyday activities into events may be partially explained by individual differences in gaze patterns. Those who segment less normatively may do so because they fixate less normative regions. Results have implications for future interventions designed to improve encoding in older adults. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
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Kaup B, Ulrich R, Bausenhart KM, Bryce D, Butz MV, Dignath D, Dudschig C, Franz VH, Friedrich C, Gawrilow C, Heller J, Huff M, Hütter M, Janczyk M, Leuthold H, Mallot H, Nürk HC, Ramscar M, Said N, Svaldi J, Wong HY. Modal and amodal cognition: an overarching principle in various domains of psychology. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2024; 88:307-337. [PMID: 37847268 PMCID: PMC10857976 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-023-01878-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/17/2023] [Accepted: 09/17/2023] [Indexed: 10/18/2023]
Abstract
Accounting for how the human mind represents the internal and external world is a crucial feature of many theories of human cognition. Central to this question is the distinction between modal as opposed to amodal representational formats. It has often been assumed that one but not both of these two types of representations underlie processing in specific domains of cognition (e.g., perception, mental imagery, and language). However, in this paper, we suggest that both formats play a major role in most cognitive domains. We believe that a comprehensive theory of cognition requires a solid understanding of these representational formats and their functional roles within and across different domains of cognition, the developmental trajectory of these representational formats, and their role in dysfunctional behavior. Here we sketch such an overarching perspective that brings together research from diverse subdisciplines of psychology on modal and amodal representational formats so as to unravel their functional principles and their interactions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Barbara Kaup
- Department of Psychology, Fachbereich Psychologie, University of Tübingen, Schleichstr. 4, 72076, Tübingen, Germany.
| | - Rolf Ulrich
- Department of Psychology, Fachbereich Psychologie, University of Tübingen, Schleichstr. 4, 72076, Tübingen, Germany.
| | - Karin M Bausenhart
- Department of Psychology, Fachbereich Psychologie, University of Tübingen, Schleichstr. 4, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Donna Bryce
- Department of Psychology, Fachbereich Psychologie, University of Tübingen, Schleichstr. 4, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
- Department of Psychology, University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany
| | - Martin V Butz
- Department of Psychology, Fachbereich Psychologie, University of Tübingen, Schleichstr. 4, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
- Department of Computer Science, University of Tübingen, Sand 14, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
| | - David Dignath
- Department of Psychology, Fachbereich Psychologie, University of Tübingen, Schleichstr. 4, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Carolin Dudschig
- Department of Psychology, Fachbereich Psychologie, University of Tübingen, Schleichstr. 4, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Volker H Franz
- Department of Computer Science, University of Tübingen, Sand 14, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Claudia Friedrich
- Department of Psychology, Fachbereich Psychologie, University of Tübingen, Schleichstr. 4, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Caterina Gawrilow
- Department of Psychology, Fachbereich Psychologie, University of Tübingen, Schleichstr. 4, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Jürgen Heller
- Department of Psychology, Fachbereich Psychologie, University of Tübingen, Schleichstr. 4, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Markus Huff
- Department of Psychology, Fachbereich Psychologie, University of Tübingen, Schleichstr. 4, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
- Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Mandy Hütter
- Department of Psychology, Fachbereich Psychologie, University of Tübingen, Schleichstr. 4, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Markus Janczyk
- Department of Psychology, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany
| | - Hartmut Leuthold
- Department of Psychology, Fachbereich Psychologie, University of Tübingen, Schleichstr. 4, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Hanspeter Mallot
- Department of Biology, University of Tübingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 28, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Hans-Christoph Nürk
- Department of Psychology, Fachbereich Psychologie, University of Tübingen, Schleichstr. 4, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Michael Ramscar
- Department of Psychology, Fachbereich Psychologie, University of Tübingen, Schleichstr. 4, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Nadia Said
- Department of Psychology, Fachbereich Psychologie, University of Tübingen, Schleichstr. 4, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Jennifer Svaldi
- Department of Psychology, Fachbereich Psychologie, University of Tübingen, Schleichstr. 4, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
- German Center for Mental Health (DZPG), partner site, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Hong Yu Wong
- Department of Philosophy, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
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9
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Cropper SJ, Little DR, Xu L, Bruno AM, Johnston A. Measuring the perception and metacognition of time. J Vis 2024; 24:5. [PMID: 38506794 PMCID: PMC10960227 DOI: 10.1167/jov.24.3.5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/13/2023] [Accepted: 01/19/2024] [Indexed: 03/21/2024] Open
Abstract
The ability of humans to identify and reproduce short time intervals (in the region of a second) may be affected by many factors ranging from the gender and personality of the individual observer, through the attentional state, to the precise spatiotemporal structure of the stimulus. The relative roles of these very different factors are a challenge to describe and define; several methodological approaches have been used to achieve this to varying degrees of success. Here we describe and model the results of a paradigm affording not only a first-order measurement of the perceived duration of an interval but also a second-order metacognitive judgement of perceived time. This approach, we argue, expands the form of the data generally collected in duration-judgements and allows more detailed comparison of psychophysical behavior to the underlying theory. We also describe a hierarchical Bayesian measurement model that performs a quantitative analysis of the trial-by-trial data calculating the variability of the temporal estimates and the metacognitive judgments allowing direct comparison between an actual and an ideal observer. We fit the model to data collected for judgements of 750 ms (bisecting 1500 ms) and 1500 ms (bisecting 3000 ms) intervals across three stimulus modalities (visual, audio, and audiovisual). This enhanced form of data on a given interval judgement and the ability to track its progression on a trial-by-trial basis offers a way of looking at the different roles that subject-based, task-based and stimulus-based factors have on the perception of time.
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Affiliation(s)
- Simon J Cropper
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Daniel R Little
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Liheng Xu
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Aurelio M Bruno
- Department of Psychology, University of York, York, UK
- School of Psychology and Vision Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
| | - Alan Johnston
- Department of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
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10
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Ristic J, Capozzi F. The role of visual and auditory information in social event segmentation. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 2024; 77:626-638. [PMID: 37154602 PMCID: PMC10880416 DOI: 10.1177/17470218231176471] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/27/2022] [Revised: 04/26/2023] [Accepted: 05/01/2023] [Indexed: 05/10/2023]
Abstract
Humans organise their social worlds into social and nonsocial events. Social event segmentation refers to the ability to parse the environmental content into social and nonsocial events or units. Here, we investigated the role that perceptual information from visual and auditory modalities, in isolation and in conjunction, played in social event segmentation. Participants viewed a video clip depicting an interaction between two actors and marked the boundaries of social and nonsocial events. Depending on the condition, the clip at first contained only auditory or only visual information. Then, the clip was shown containing both auditory and visual information. Higher overall group consensus and response consistency in parsing the clip was found for social segmentation and when both auditory and visual information was available. Presenting the clip in the visual domain only benefitted group agreement in social segmentation while the inclusion of auditory information (under the audiovisual condition) also improved response consistency in nonsocial segmentation. Thus, social segmentation utilises information from the visual modality, with the auditory cues contributing under ambiguous or uncertain conditions and during segmentation of nonsocial content.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jelena Ristic
- Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada
| | - Francesca Capozzi
- Department of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, Québec, Canada
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11
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Pollak OH, Shin KE, Baroni A, Gerson RS, Bell KA, Tezanos KM, Fernandes SN, Robinaugh DJ, Schacter DL, Spirito A, Cha CB. An examination of episodic future thinking in the emergency department among youth experiencing suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2024; 33:923-933. [PMID: 37162586 DOI: 10.1007/s00787-023-02219-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/13/2023] [Accepted: 04/22/2023] [Indexed: 05/11/2023]
Abstract
Youth experiencing suicidal thoughts and/or behaviors (STBs) frequently present to emergency departments for acute psychiatric care. These settings offer a transitory yet pivotal opportunity to assess, intervene on, and plan continued care for STBs. This study examined a clinically relevant, understudied aspect of psychological functioning among youth experiencing STBs in the emergency department: episodic future thinking, or the ability to imagine discrete autobiographical future events. A sample of 167 youths (10-17 years) presenting to a pediatric psychiatric emergency department for STBs completed a performance-based measure of episodic future thinking assessing richness in detail and subjective characteristics of imagined future events. STB recurrence was assessed 6 months later. Immediately following a suicide-related crisis, youth demonstrated mixed abilities to imagine their future: they generated some concrete future event details but did not subjectively perceive these events as being very detailed or likely to occur. Older adolescents (i.e., 15-17) generated more episodic details than pre-/younger adolescents (i.e., 10-14), particularly those pertaining to actions or sensory perceptions. There was no evidence linking less detailed episodic future thinking and greater likelihood of STBs following the emergency department visit; instead, hopelessness was a more robust risk factor. Findings underscore the importance and clinical utility of better understanding the psychological state of youth during or immediately following a suicide-related crisis. In particular, assessing youths' future thinking abilities in the emergency department may directly inform approaches to acute care delivery.
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Affiliation(s)
- Olivia H Pollak
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 235 E. Cameron Avenue, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.
| | - Ki Eun Shin
- Department of Behavioral Sciences, Long Island University, Post Campus, Brookville, NY, USA
| | - Argelinda Baroni
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
| | - Ruth S Gerson
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
| | - Kerri-Anne Bell
- Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA
| | - Katherine M Tezanos
- Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
| | | | | | | | - Anthony Spirito
- Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
| | - Christine B Cha
- Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
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12
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Brich IR, Papenmeier F, Huff M, Merkt M. Construction or updating? Event model processes during visual narrative comprehension. Psychon Bull Rev 2024:10.3758/s13423-023-02424-w. [PMID: 38361105 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-023-02424-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 11/10/2023] [Indexed: 02/17/2024]
Abstract
The plot of a narrative is represented in the form of event models in working memory. Because only parts of the plot are actually presented and information is continually changing, comprehenders have to infer a good portion of a narrative and keep their mental representation updated. Research has identified two related processes (e.g., Gernsbacher, 1997): During model construction (shifting, laying a foundation) at large coherence breaks an event model is completely built anew. During model updating (mapping) at smaller omissions, however, the current event model is preserved, and only changed parts are updated through inference processes. Thus far, reliably distinguishing those two processes in visual narratives like comics was difficult. We report a study (N = 80) that aimed to map the differences between constructing and updating event models in visual narratives by combining measures from narrative comprehension and event cognition research and manipulating event structure. Participants watched short visual narratives designed to (not) contain event boundaries at larger coherence breaks and elicit inferences through small omissions, while we collected viewing time measures as well as event segmentation and comprehensibility data. Viewing time, segmentation, and comprehensibility data were in line with the assumption of two distinct comprehension processes. We thus found converging evidence across multiple measures for distinct model construction and updating processes in visual narratives.
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Affiliation(s)
- Irina R Brich
- Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien, Schleichstr. 6, D-72076, Tübingen, Germany.
| | - Frank Papenmeier
- Department of Psychology, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Markus Huff
- Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien, Schleichstr. 6, D-72076, Tübingen, Germany
- Department of Psychology, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Martin Merkt
- Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien, Schleichstr. 6, D-72076, Tübingen, Germany
- German Institute for Adult Education - Leibniz Centre for Lifelong Learning, Bonn, Germany
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13
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Nolden S, Turan G, Güler B, Günseli E. Prediction error and event segmentation in episodic memory. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2024; 157:105533. [PMID: 38184184 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105533] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/13/2023] [Revised: 12/11/2023] [Accepted: 01/02/2024] [Indexed: 01/08/2024]
Abstract
Organizing the continuous flow of experiences into meaningful events is a crucial prerequisite for episodic memory. Prediction error and event segmentation both play important roles in supporting the genesis of meaningful mnemonic representations of events. We review theoretical contributions discussing the relationship between prediction error and event segmentation, as well as literature on episodic memory related to prediction error and event segmentation. We discuss the extent of overlap of mechanisms underlying memory emergence through prediction error and event segmentation, with a specific focus on attention and working memory. Finally, we identify areas in research that are currently developing and suggest future directions. We provide an overview of mechanisms underlying memory formation through predictions, violations of predictions, and event segmentation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sophie Nolden
- Department for Developmental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, Germany; IDeA-Center for Research on Individual Development and Adaptive Education of Children at Risk, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
| | - Gözem Turan
- Department for Developmental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, Germany; IDeA-Center for Research on Individual Development and Adaptive Education of Children at Risk, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
| | - Berna Güler
- Department of Psychology, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey
| | - Eren Günseli
- Department of Psychology, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey
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14
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Prochnow A, Zhou X, Ghorbani F, Wendiggensen P, Roessner V, Hommel B, Beste C. The temporal dynamics of how the brain structures natural scenes. Cortex 2024; 171:26-39. [PMID: 37977111 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.10.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/06/2023] [Revised: 09/25/2023] [Accepted: 10/10/2023] [Indexed: 11/19/2023]
Abstract
Individuals organize the evolving stream of events in their environment by partitioning it into discrete units. Event segmentation theory (EST) provides a cognitive explanation for the process of this partitioning. Critically, the underlying time-resolved neural mechanisms are not understood, and thus a central conceptual aspect of how humans implement this central ability is missing. To gain better insight into the fundamental temporal dynamics of event segmentation, EEG oscillatory activity was measured while participants watched a narrative video and partitioned the movie into meaningful segments. Using EEG beamforming methods, we show that theta, alpha, and beta band activity in frontal, parietal, and occipital areas, as well as their interactions, reflect critical elements of the event segmentation process established by EST. In sum, we see a mechanistic temporal chain of processes that provides the neurophysiological basis for how the brain partitions and structures continuously evolving scenes and points to an integrated system that organizes the various subprocesses of event segmentation. This study thus integrates neurophysiology and cognitive theory to better understand how the human brain operates in rather variable and unpredictable situations. Therefore, it represents an important step toward studying neurophysiological dynamics in ecologically valid and naturalistic settings and, in doing so, addresses a critical gap in knowledge regarding the temporal dynamics of how the brain structures natural scenes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Astrid Prochnow
- Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Schubertstrasse 42, 03107 Dresden, Germany.
| | - Xianzhen Zhou
- Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Schubertstrasse 42, 03107 Dresden, Germany
| | - Foroogh Ghorbani
- Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Schubertstrasse 42, 03107 Dresden, Germany
| | - Paul Wendiggensen
- Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Schubertstrasse 42, 03107 Dresden, Germany
| | - Veit Roessner
- Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Schubertstrasse 42, 03107 Dresden, Germany
| | - Bernhard Hommel
- Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Schubertstrasse 42, 03107 Dresden, Germany; School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China
| | - Christian Beste
- Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Schubertstrasse 42, 03107 Dresden, Germany; School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China
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15
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Brady N, Gough P, Leonard S, Allan P, McManus C, Foley T, O'Leary A, McGovern DP. Actions are characterized by 'canonical moments' in a sequence of movements. Cognition 2024; 242:105652. [PMID: 37866178 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105652] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2023] [Revised: 10/12/2023] [Accepted: 10/15/2023] [Indexed: 10/24/2023]
Abstract
Understanding what others are doing is an essential aspect of social cognition that depends on our ability to quickly recognize and categorize their actions. To effectively study action recognition we need to understand how actions are bounded, where they start and where they end. Here we borrow a conceptual approach - the notion of 'canonicality' - introduced by Palmer and colleagues in their study of object recognition and apply it to the study of action recognition. Using a set of 50 video clips sourced from stock photography sites, we show that many everyday actions - transitive and intransitive, social and non-social, communicative - are characterized by 'canonical moments' in a sequence of movements that are agreed by participants to 'best represent' a named action, as indicated in a forced choice (Exp 1, n = 142) and a free choice (Exp 2, n = 125) paradigm. In Exp 3 (n = 102) we confirm that canonical moments from action sequences are more readily named as depicting specific actions and, mirroring research in object recognition, that such canonical moments are privileged in memory (Exp 4, n = 95). We suggest that 'canonical moments', being those that convey maximal information about human actions, are integral to the representation of human action.1.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nuala Brady
- School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
| | - Patricia Gough
- School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
| | - Sophie Leonard
- School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
| | - Paul Allan
- School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
| | - Caoimhe McManus
- School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
| | - Tomas Foley
- School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
| | - Aoife O'Leary
- School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
| | - David P McGovern
- School of Psychology, Dublin City University, Glasnevin Campus, Dublin 9, Ireland
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16
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Karagoz AB, Morse SJ, Reagh ZM. Cortico-hippocampal networks carry information about characters and their relationships in an extended narrative. Neuropsychologia 2023; 191:108729. [PMID: 37951387 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2023.108729] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2023] [Revised: 10/04/2023] [Accepted: 11/03/2023] [Indexed: 11/14/2023]
Abstract
Social information is a centerpiece of human experience. Despite a wealth of research into the way we understand social relationships and how aspects of social life might be supported by the brain, relatively little is known about how the brain represents individual people and their relationships with others. How do intrinsic networks in the brain track people and their connections in complex situations? Here, we sought to understand this issue using an open neuroimaging dataset in which people freely viewed "The Grand Budapest Hotel." Using support vector machine classification of fMRI activity patterns, we found that character identity could be decoded throughout subsystems of the brain's "Default Mode" Network, especially in regions of an Anterior Temporal and a Medial Prefrontal subsystem, as well as a Medial Temporal Network (MTN). We tested character relationships in two ways - onscreen co-occurrence and shared semantic information from an independent sample of character descriptions - and found evidence for these representations throughout the "Default Mode" Network, and the MTN. The extent to which each variant of character relationships fit neural patterns differed across networks, with abstract semantic relatedness being especially prominent in regions of Anterior Temporal and Medial Prefrontal Networks. These data show that subsystems of the brain's "Default Mode" Network and MTN carry information about individual people as well as their connections, and highlight a particularly strong role for the Anterior Temporal network in representing this information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ata B Karagoz
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, 63105, USA.
| | - Sarah J Morse
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, 63105, USA
| | - Zachariah M Reagh
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, 63105, USA
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17
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Raykov PP, Varga D, Bird CM. False memories for ending of events. J Exp Psychol Gen 2023; 152:3459-3475. [PMID: 37650821 PMCID: PMC10694998 DOI: 10.1037/xge0001462] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/17/2022] [Revised: 06/19/2023] [Accepted: 06/27/2023] [Indexed: 09/01/2023]
Abstract
Memories are not perfect recordings of the past and can be subject to systematic biases. Memory distortions are often caused by our experience of what typically happens in a given situation. However, it is unclear whether memory for events is biased by the knowledge that events usually have a predictable structure (a beginning, middle, and an end). Using video clips of everyday situations, we tested how interrupting events at unexpected time points affects memory of how those events ended. In four free recall experiments (1, 2, 4, and 5), we found that interrupting clips just before a salient piece of action was completed, resulted in the false recall of details about how the clip might have ended. We refer to this as "event extension." On the other hand, interrupting clips just after one scene had ended and a new scene started, resulted in omissions of details about the true ending of the clip (Experiments 4 and 5). We found that these effects were present, albeit attenuated, when testing memory shortly after watching the video clips compared to a week later (Experiments 5a and 5b). The event extension effect was not present when memory was tested with a recognition paradigm (Experiment 3). Overall, we conclude that when people watch videos that violate their expectations of typical event structure, they show a bias to later recall the videos as if they had ended at a predictable event boundary, exhibiting event extension or the omission of details depending on where the original video was interrupted. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
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Affiliation(s)
- Petar P Raykov
- Sussex Neuroscience, School of Psychology, University of Sussex
| | - Dominika Varga
- Sussex Neuroscience, School of Psychology, University of Sussex
| | - Chris M Bird
- Sussex Neuroscience, School of Psychology, University of Sussex
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18
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Yates TS, Sherman BE, Yousif SR. More than a moment: What does it mean to call something an 'event'? Psychon Bull Rev 2023; 30:2067-2082. [PMID: 37407794 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-023-02311-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 05/14/2023] [Indexed: 07/07/2023]
Abstract
Experiences are stored in the mind as discrete mental units, or 'events,' which influence-and are influenced by-attention, learning, and memory. In this way, the notion of an 'event' is foundational to cognitive science. However, despite tremendous progress in understanding the behavioral and neural signatures of events, there is no agreed-upon definition of an event. Here, we discuss different theoretical frameworks of event perception and memory, noting what they can and cannot account for in the literature. We then highlight key aspects of events that we believe should be accounted for in theories of event processing--in particular, we argue that the structure and substance of events should be better reflected in our theories and paradigms. Finally, we discuss empirical gaps in the event cognition literature and what the future of event cognition research may look like.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tristan S Yates
- Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
| | - Brynn E Sherman
- Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
| | - Sami R Yousif
- Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
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19
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Taylor D, Gönül G, Alexander C, Züberbühler K, Clément F, Glock HJ. Reading minds or reading scripts? De-intellectualising theory of mind. Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc 2023; 98:2028-2048. [PMID: 37408142 DOI: 10.1111/brv.12994] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2022] [Revised: 06/14/2023] [Accepted: 06/19/2023] [Indexed: 07/07/2023]
Abstract
Understanding the origins of human social cognition is a central challenge in contemporary science. In recent decades, the idea of a 'Theory of Mind' (ToM) has emerged as the most popular way of explaining unique features of human social cognition. This default view has been progressively undermined by research on 'implicit' ToM, which suggests that relevant precursor abilities may already be present in preverbal human infants and great apes. However, this area of research suffers from conceptual difficulties and empirical limitations, including explanatory circularity, over-intellectualisation, and inconsistent empirical replication. Our article breaks new ground by adapting 'script theory' for application to both linguistic and non-linguistic agents. It thereby provides a new theoretical framework able to resolve the aforementioned issues, generate novel predictions, and provide a plausible account of how individuals make sense of the behaviour of others. Script theory is based on the premise that pre-verbal infants and great apes are capable of basic forms of agency-detection and non-mentalistic goal understanding, allowing individuals to form event-schemata that are then used to make sense of the behaviour of others. We show how script theory circumvents fundamental problems created by ToM-based frameworks, explains patterns of inconsistent replication, and offers important novel predictions regarding how humans and other animals understand and predict the behaviour of others.
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Affiliation(s)
- Derry Taylor
- Faculty of Science, Institute of Biology, Department of Comparative Cognition, University of Neuchâtel, Rue-Emile-Argand 11, Neuchâtel, 2000, Switzerland
| | - Gökhan Gönül
- Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, Institute of Language and Communication Sciences, Cognitive Science Centre, University of Neuchâtel, Pierre-à-Mazel 7, Neuchâtel, 2000, Switzerland
| | - Cameron Alexander
- Department of Philosophy, University of Zürich, Zürichbergstrasse 43, Zurich, CH-8044, Switzerland
| | - Klaus Züberbühler
- Faculty of Science, Institute of Biology, Department of Comparative Cognition, University of Neuchâtel, Rue-Emile-Argand 11, Neuchâtel, 2000, Switzerland
| | - Fabrice Clément
- Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, Institute of Language and Communication Sciences, Cognitive Science Centre, University of Neuchâtel, Pierre-à-Mazel 7, Neuchâtel, 2000, Switzerland
| | - Hans-Johann Glock
- Department of Philosophy, University of Zürich, Zürichbergstrasse 43, Zurich, CH-8044, Switzerland
- Institute for the Study of Language Evolution, University of Zürich, Affolternstrasse 56, Zürich, CH-8050, Switzerland
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20
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Benear SL, Popal HS, Zheng Y, Tanrıverdi B, Murty VP, Perlman SB, Olson IR, Newcombe NS. Setting boundaries: Development of neural and behavioral event cognition in early childhood. Dev Sci 2023; 26:e13409. [PMID: 37183213 PMCID: PMC10592563 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13409] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/20/2022] [Revised: 03/16/2023] [Accepted: 04/13/2023] [Indexed: 05/16/2023]
Abstract
The ongoing stream of sensory experience is so complex and ever-changing that we tend to parse this experience at "event boundaries," which structures and strengthens memory. Memory processes undergo profound change across early childhood. Whether young children also divide their ongoing processing along event boundaries, and if those boundaries relate to memory, could provide important insight into the development of memory systems. In Study 1, 4-7-year-old children and adults segmented a cartoon, and we tested their memory. Children's event boundaries were more variable than adults' and differed in location and consistency of agreement. Older children's event segmentation was more adult-like than younger children's, and children who segmented events more like adults had better memory for those events. In Study 2, we asked whether these developmental differences in event segmentation had their roots in distinct neural representations. A separate group of 4-8-year-old children watched the same cartoon while undergoing an fMRI scan. In the right hippocampus, greater pattern dissimilarity across event boundaries compared to within events was evident for both child and adult behavioral boundaries, suggesting children and adults share similar event cognition. However, the boundaries identified by a data-driven Hidden Markov Model found that a different brain region-the left and right angular gyrus-aligned only with event boundaries defined by children. Overall, these data suggest that children's event cognition is reasonably well-developed by age 4 but continues to become more adult-like across early childhood. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Adults naturally break their experience into events, which structures and strengthens memory, but less is known about children's event perception and memory. Study 1 had adults and children segment and remember events from an animated show, and Study 2 compared those segmentations to other children's fMRI data. Children show better recognition and temporal order memory and more adult-like event segmentation with age, and children who segment more like adults have better memory. Children's and adults' behavioral boundaries mapped onto pattern similarity differences in hippocampus, and children's behavioral boundaries matched a data-driven model's boundaries in angular gyrus.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Haroon S. Popal
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Temple University
| | | | | | - Vishnu P. Murty
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Temple University
| | - Susan B. Perlman
- Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
| | - Ingrid R. Olson
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Temple University
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21
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Kauf C, Ivanova AA, Rambelli G, Chersoni E, She JS, Chowdhury Z, Fedorenko E, Lenci A. Event Knowledge in Large Language Models: The Gap Between the Impossible and the Unlikely. Cogn Sci 2023; 47:e13386. [PMID: 38009752 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13386] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2022] [Revised: 10/27/2023] [Accepted: 11/04/2023] [Indexed: 11/29/2023]
Abstract
Word co-occurrence patterns in language corpora contain a surprising amount of conceptual knowledge. Large language models (LLMs), trained to predict words in context, leverage these patterns to achieve impressive performance on diverse semantic tasks requiring world knowledge. An important but understudied question about LLMs' semantic abilities is whether they acquire generalized knowledge of common events. Here, we test whether five pretrained LLMs (from 2018's BERT to 2023's MPT) assign a higher likelihood to plausible descriptions of agent-patient interactions than to minimally different implausible versions of the same event. Using three curated sets of minimal sentence pairs (total n = 1215), we found that pretrained LLMs possess substantial event knowledge, outperforming other distributional language models. In particular, they almost always assign a higher likelihood to possible versus impossible events (The teacher bought the laptop vs. The laptop bought the teacher). However, LLMs show less consistent preferences for likely versus unlikely events (The nanny tutored the boy vs. The boy tutored the nanny). In follow-up analyses, we show that (i) LLM scores are driven by both plausibility and surface-level sentence features, (ii) LLM scores generalize well across syntactic variants (active vs. passive constructions) but less well across semantic variants (synonymous sentences), (iii) some LLM errors mirror human judgment ambiguity, and (iv) sentence plausibility serves as an organizing dimension in internal LLM representations. Overall, our results show that important aspects of event knowledge naturally emerge from distributional linguistic patterns, but also highlight a gap between representations of possible/impossible and likely/unlikely events.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carina Kauf
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
| | - Anna A Ivanova
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
| | - Giulia Rambelli
- Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, University of Bologna
| | - Emmanuele Chersoni
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic University
| | - Jingyuan Selena She
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
| | | | - Evelina Fedorenko
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
| | - Alessandro Lenci
- Department of Philology, Literature, and Linguistics, University of Pisa
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22
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Ongchoco JDK, Walter-Terrill R, Scholl BJ. Visual event boundaries restrict anchoring effects in decision-making. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2023; 120:e2303883120. [PMID: 37874857 PMCID: PMC10623015 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2303883120] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/08/2023] [Accepted: 06/29/2023] [Indexed: 10/26/2023] Open
Abstract
Research on higher-level thought has revealed many principles of reasoning and decision-making but has rarely made contact with how we perceive the world in the first place. Here we show how a lower-level property of perception-the spontaneous and task-irrelevant segmentation of continuous visual stimulation into discrete events-can restrict one of the most notorious biases in decision-making: numerical anchoring. Subjects walked down a long room in an immersive three dimensional (3D) animation and then made a numerical judgment (e.g., of how much a suitcase is worth, or of how many hours of community service a minor crime deserved). Critically, some subjects passed through a doorway (a visual event boundary) during their virtual walk, while others did not-equating time, distance traveled, and visual complexity. The anchoring manipulation was especially innocuous, not appearing to be part of the experiment at all. Before the online trial began, subjects reported the two-digit numerical value from a visually distorted "CAPTCHA" ("to verify that you are human")-where this task-irrelevant anchor was either low (e.g., 29) or high (e.g., 92). With no doorway, we observed reliable anchoring effects: Higher CAPTCHA values produced higher estimates. With the doorway, however, such effects were attenuated or even eliminated. This generalized across tasks involving item valuations, factual questions, and legal judgments and in tests of both incidental and explicit anchoring. This demonstrates how spontaneous visual event segmentation can have profound consequences for higher-level thought.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Brian J. Scholl
- Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT06520-8047
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23
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Riegel M, Granja D, Amer T, Vuilleumier P, Rimmele U. Opposite effects of emotion and event segmentation on temporal order memory and object-context binding. Cogn Emot 2023:1-19. [PMID: 37882239 DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2023.2270195] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/09/2023] [Accepted: 09/04/2023] [Indexed: 10/27/2023]
Abstract
Our daily lives unfold continuously, yet our memories are organised into distinct events, situated in a specific context of space and time, and chunked when this context changes (at event boundaries). Previous research showed that this process, termed event segmentation, enhances object-context binding but impairs temporal order memory. Physiologically, peaks in pupil dilation index event segmentation, similar to emotion-induced bursts of autonomic arousal. Emotional arousal also modulates object-context binding and temporal order memory. Yet, these two critical factors have not been systematically studied together. To address this gap, we ran a behavioural experiment using a paradigm validated to study event segmentation and extended it with emotion manipulation. During encoding, we sequentially presented greyscale objects embedded in coloured frames (colour changes defining events), with a neutral or aversive sound. During retrieval, we tested participants' memory of temporal order memory and object-colour binding. We found opposite effects of emotion and event segmentation on episodic memory. While event segmentation enhanced object-context binding, emotion impaired it. On the contrary, event segmentation impaired temporal order memory, but emotion enhanced it. These findings increase our understanding of episodic memory organisation in laboratory settings, and potentially in real life with perceptual changes and emotion fluctuations constantly interacting.
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Affiliation(s)
- Monika Riegel
- Emotion and Memory Laboratory, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- Swiss Center of Affective Sciences (CISA), University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- Center for Interdisciplinary Study of Gerontology and Vulnerability (CIGEV), University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- Laboratory for Behavioral Neurology and Imaging of Cognition, Department of Basic Neurosciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Daniel Granja
- Emotion and Memory Laboratory, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- Center for Interdisciplinary Study of Gerontology and Vulnerability (CIGEV), University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- Neurocenter, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Tarek Amer
- Psychology Department, University of Victoria, BC, Victoria, Canada
| | - Patrik Vuilleumier
- Swiss Center of Affective Sciences (CISA), University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- Laboratory for Behavioral Neurology and Imaging of Cognition, Department of Basic Neurosciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- Neurocenter, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Ulrike Rimmele
- Emotion and Memory Laboratory, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- Swiss Center of Affective Sciences (CISA), University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- Center for Interdisciplinary Study of Gerontology and Vulnerability (CIGEV), University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- Laboratory for Behavioral Neurology and Imaging of Cognition, Department of Basic Neurosciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
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24
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Kumar M, Goldstein A, Michelmann S, Zacks JM, Hasson U, Norman KA. Bayesian Surprise Predicts Human Event Segmentation in Story Listening. Cogn Sci 2023; 47:e13343. [PMID: 37867379 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13343] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2022] [Revised: 08/28/2023] [Accepted: 09/01/2023] [Indexed: 10/24/2023]
Abstract
Event segmentation theory posits that people segment continuous experience into discrete events and that event boundaries occur when there are large transient increases in prediction error. Here, we set out to test this theory in the context of story listening, by using a deep learning language model (GPT-2) to compute the predicted probability distribution of the next word, at each point in the story. For three stories, we used the probability distributions generated by GPT-2 to compute the time series of prediction error. We also asked participants to listen to these stories while marking event boundaries. We used regression models to relate the GPT-2 measures to the human segmentation data. We found that event boundaries are associated with transient increases in Bayesian surprise but not with a simpler measure of prediction error (surprisal) that tracks, for each word in the story, how strongly that word was predicted at the previous time point. These results support the hypothesis that prediction error serves as a control mechanism governing event segmentation and point to important differences between operational definitions of prediction error.
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Affiliation(s)
- Manoj Kumar
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University
| | - Ariel Goldstein
- Department of Cognitive and Brain Sciences and Business School, Hebrew University
- Google Research, Tel-Aviv
| | | | - Jeffrey M Zacks
- Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis
| | - Uri Hasson
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University
- Department of Psychology, Princeton University
| | - Kenneth A Norman
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University
- Department of Psychology, Princeton University
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25
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Tikka P, Kaipainen M, Salmi J. Narrative simulation of social experiences in naturalistic context - A neurocinematic approach. Neuropsychologia 2023; 188:108654. [PMID: 37507066 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2023.108654] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/15/2022] [Revised: 07/02/2023] [Accepted: 07/25/2023] [Indexed: 07/30/2023]
Abstract
Narratives may be regarded as simulations of everyday social situations. They are key to studying the human mind in socio-culturally determined contexts as they allow anchoring to the common ground of embodied and environmentally-engaged cognition. Here we review recent findings from naturalistic neuroscience on neural functions in conditions that mimic lifelike situations. We will focus particularly on neurocinematics, a research field that applies mediated narratives as stimuli for neuroimaging experiments. During the last two decades, this paradigm has contributed to an accumulation of insights about the neural underpinnings of behavior and sense-making in various narratively contextualized situations particularly pertaining to socio-emotional encounters. One of the key questions in neurocinematics is, how do intersubjectively synchronized brain activations relate to subjective experiences? Another question we address is how to bring natural contexts into experimental studies. Seeking to respond to both questions, we suggest neurocinematic studies to examine three manifestations of the same phenomenon side-by-side: subjective experiences of narrative situations, unfolding of narrative stimulus structure, and neural processes that co-constitute the experience. This approach facilitates identifying experientially meaningful activity patterns in the brain and points out what they may mean in relation to shared and communicable contents. Via rich-featured and temporally contextualized narrative stimuli, neurocinematics attempts to contribute to emerging holistic theories of neural dynamics and connectomics explaining typical and atypical interindividual variability.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pia Tikka
- Enactive Virtuality Lab, Baltic School of Film, Media and Arts, Tallinn University, Estonia.
| | | | - Juha Salmi
- Translational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
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26
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Schüttengruber V, Freund AM. The Role of Subjective Expectations for Exhaustion and Recovery: The Sample Case of Work and Leisure. PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2023; 18:1009-1027. [PMID: 36469842 PMCID: PMC10475213 DOI: 10.1177/17456916221134529] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/02/2023]
Abstract
We propose a new model of exhaustion and recovery that posits that people evaluate an activity as exhausting or recovering on the basis of the subjective expectation about how exhausting or recovering activities related to a certain life domain are. To exemplify the model, we focus as a first step on the widely shared expectations that work is exhausting and leisure is recovering. We assume that the association of an activity related to a life domain associated with exhaustion (e.g., work) leads people to monitor their experiences and selectively attend to signs of exhaustion; in contrast, while pursuing an activity related to a life domain associated with recovery (e.g., leisure), people preferentially process signs of recovery. We further posit that the preferential processing of signs of exhaustion (vs. recovery) leads to experiencing more exhaustion when pursuing activities expected to be exhausting (e.g., work activities) and more recovery when pursuing activities expected to be recovering (e.g., leisure activities). This motivational process model of exhaustion and recovery provides new testable hypotheses that differ from predictions derived from limited-resource models.
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Affiliation(s)
- Victoria Schüttengruber
- Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Switzerland
- Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES – Overcoming vulnerability: Life course perspectives, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Alexandra M. Freund
- Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Switzerland
- Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES – Overcoming vulnerability: Life course perspectives, Geneva, Switzerland
- University Research Priority Program Dynamics of Healthy Aging, University of Zurich, Switzerland
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Chen EYH, Wong SMY, Tang EYH, Lei LKS, Suen YN, Hui CLM. Spurious Autobiographical Memory of Psychosis: A Mechanistic Hypothesis for the Resolution, Persistence, and Recurrence of Positive Symptoms in Psychotic Disorders. Brain Sci 2023; 13:1069. [PMID: 37509001 PMCID: PMC10376952 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci13071069] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/05/2023] [Revised: 07/06/2023] [Accepted: 07/12/2023] [Indexed: 07/30/2023] Open
Abstract
Psychotic disorders are complex disorders with multiple etiologies. While increased dopamine synthesis capacity has been proposed to underlie psychotic episodes, dopamine-independent processes are also involved (less responsive to dopamine receptor-blocking medications). The underlying mechanism(s) of the reduction in antipsychotic responsiveness over time, especially after repeated relapses, remain unclear. Despite the consistent evidence of dopamine overactivity and hippocampal volume loss in schizophrenia, few accounts have been provided based on the interactive effect of dopamine on hippocampal synapse plasticity mediating autobiographical memory processes. The present hypothesis builds upon previous works showing the potential effects of dopamine overactivity on hippocampal-mediated neuroplasticity underlying autobiographical memory, alongside known patterns of autobiographical memory dysfunction in psychosis. We propose that spurious autobiographical memory of psychosis (SAMP) produced during active psychosis may be a key mechanism mediating relapses and treatment non-responsiveness. In a hyperdopaminergic state, SAMP is expected to be generated at an increased rate during active psychosis. Similar to other memories, it will undergo assimilation, accommodation, and extinction processes. However, if SAMP fails to integrate with existing memory, a discontinuity in autobiographical memory may result. Inadequate exposure to normalizing experiences and hyposalience due to overmedication or negative symptoms may also impede the resolution of SAMP. Residual SAMP is hypothesized to increase the propensity for relapse and treatment non-responsiveness. Based on recent findings on the role of dopamine in facilitating hippocampal synapse plasticity and autobiographical memory formation, the SAMP hypothesis is consistent with clinical observations of DUP effects, including the repetition of contents in psychotic relapses as well as the emergence of treatment non-responsiveness after repeated relapses. Clinical implications of the hypothesis highlight the importance of minimizing active psychosis, integrating psychosis memory, avoiding over-medication, and fostering normalizing experiences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eric Y H Chen
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Clinical Medicine, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
- The State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Stephanie M Y Wong
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Clinical Medicine, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Eric Y H Tang
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Clinical Medicine, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Lauren K S Lei
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Clinical Medicine, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Yi-Nam Suen
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Clinical Medicine, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Christy L M Hui
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Clinical Medicine, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
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28
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Isasi-Isasmendi A, Andrews C, Flecken M, Laka I, Daum MM, Meyer M, Bickel B, Sauppe S. The Agent Preference in Visual Event Apprehension. Open Mind (Camb) 2023; 7:240-282. [PMID: 37416075 PMCID: PMC10320828 DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00083] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2023] [Accepted: 03/19/2023] [Indexed: 07/08/2023] Open
Abstract
A central aspect of human experience and communication is understanding events in terms of agent ("doer") and patient ("undergoer" of action) roles. These event roles are rooted in general cognition and prominently encoded in language, with agents appearing as more salient and preferred over patients. An unresolved question is whether this preference for agents already operates during apprehension, that is, the earliest stage of event processing, and if so, whether the effect persists across different animacy configurations and task demands. Here we contrast event apprehension in two tasks and two languages that encode agents differently; Basque, a language that explicitly case-marks agents ('ergative'), and Spanish, which does not mark agents. In two brief exposure experiments, native Basque and Spanish speakers saw pictures for only 300 ms, and subsequently described them or answered probe questions about them. We compared eye fixations and behavioral correlates of event role extraction with Bayesian regression. Agents received more attention and were recognized better across languages and tasks. At the same time, language and task demands affected the attention to agents. Our findings show that a general preference for agents exists in event apprehension, but it can be modulated by task and language demands.
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Affiliation(s)
- Arrate Isasi-Isasmendi
- Department of Comparative Language Science, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution (ISLE), University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Caroline Andrews
- Department of Comparative Language Science, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution (ISLE), University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Monique Flecken
- Department of Linguistics, Amsterdam Centre for Language and Communication, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Itziar Laka
- Department of Linguistics and Basque Studies, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Leioa, Spain
| | - Moritz M. Daum
- Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution (ISLE), University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Martin Meyer
- Department of Comparative Language Science, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution (ISLE), University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Cognitive Psychology Unit, University of Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt, Austria
| | - Balthasar Bickel
- Department of Comparative Language Science, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution (ISLE), University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Sebastian Sauppe
- Department of Comparative Language Science, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution (ISLE), University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
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29
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Sherrill KR, Molitor RJ, Karagoz AB, Atyam M, Mack ML, Preston AR. Generalization of cognitive maps across space and time. Cereb Cortex 2023; 33:7971-7992. [PMID: 36977625 PMCID: PMC10492577 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhad092] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/26/2022] [Revised: 02/24/2023] [Accepted: 02/25/2023] [Indexed: 03/30/2023] Open
Abstract
Prominent theories posit that associative memory structures, known as cognitive maps, support flexible generalization of knowledge across cognitive domains. Here, we evince a representational account of cognitive map flexibility by quantifying how spatial knowledge formed one day was used predictively in a temporal sequence task 24 hours later, biasing both behavior and neural response. Participants learned novel object locations in distinct virtual environments. After learning, hippocampus and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) represented a cognitive map, wherein neural patterns became more similar for same-environment objects and more discriminable for different-environment objects. Twenty-four hours later, participants rated their preference for objects from spatial learning; objects were presented in sequential triplets from either the same or different environments. We found that preference response times were slower when participants transitioned between same- and different-environment triplets. Furthermore, hippocampal spatial map coherence tracked behavioral slowing at the implicit sequence transitions. At transitions, predictive reinstatement of virtual environments decreased in anterior parahippocampal cortex. In the absence of such predictive reinstatement after sequence transitions, hippocampus and vmPFC responses increased, accompanied by hippocampal-vmPFC functional decoupling that predicted individuals' behavioral slowing after a transition. Collectively, these findings reveal how expectations derived from spatial experience generalize to support temporal prediction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katherine R Sherrill
- Center for Learning and Memory, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
| | - Robert J Molitor
- Center for Learning and Memory, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
| | - Ata B Karagoz
- Center for Learning and Memory, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
| | - Manasa Atyam
- Center for Learning and Memory, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
| | - Michael L Mack
- Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5G 1E6, Canada
| | - Alison R Preston
- Center for Learning and Memory, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
- Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
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30
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Karakose-Akbiyik S, Caramazza A, Wurm MF. A shared neural code for the physics of actions and object events. Nat Commun 2023; 14:3316. [PMID: 37286553 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-39062-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2022] [Accepted: 05/28/2023] [Indexed: 06/09/2023] Open
Abstract
Observing others' actions recruits frontoparietal and posterior temporal brain regions - also called the action observation network. It is typically assumed that these regions support recognizing actions of animate entities (e.g., person jumping over a box). However, objects can also participate in events with rich meaning and structure (e.g., ball bouncing over a box). So far, it has not been clarified which brain regions encode information specific to goal-directed actions or more general information that also defines object events. Here, we show a shared neural code for visually presented actions and object events throughout the action observation network. We argue that this neural representation captures the structure and physics of events regardless of animacy. We find that lateral occipitotemporal cortex encodes information about events that is also invariant to stimulus modality. Our results shed light onto the representational profiles of posterior temporal and frontoparietal cortices, and their roles in encoding event information.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Alfonso Caramazza
- Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences - CIMeC, University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy
| | - Moritz F Wurm
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences - CIMeC, University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy
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31
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Wyrobnik M, van der Meer E, Klostermann F. Aberrant neural processing of event boundaries in persons with Parkinson's disease. Sci Rep 2023; 13:8818. [PMID: 37258848 PMCID: PMC10232529 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-36063-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2022] [Accepted: 05/29/2023] [Indexed: 06/02/2023] Open
Abstract
The perception of everyday events implies the segmentation into discrete sub-events (i.e. event segmentation). This process is relevant for the prediction of upcoming events and for the recall of recent activities. It is thought to involve dopaminergic networks which are strongly compromised in Parkinson's disease (PD). Indeed, deficits of event segmentation have been previously shown in PD, but underlying neuronal mechanisms remain unknown. We therefore investigated 22 persons with PD and 22 age-matched healthy controls, who performed an event segmentation task with simultaneous electroencephalography (EEG). Both groups had to indicate by button press the beginning of sub-events within three movies showing persons performing everyday activities. The segmentation performance of persons with PD deviated significantly from that of controls. Neurophysiologically, persons with PD expressed reduced theta (4-7 Hz) activity around identified event boundaries compared to healthy controls. Together, these results point to disturbed event processing in PD. According to functions attributed to EEG activities in particular frequency ranges, the PD-related theta reduction could reflect impaired matching of perceptual input with stored event representations and decreased updating processes of event information in working memory and, thus, event boundary identification.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michelle Wyrobnik
- Department of Neurology, Motor and Cognition Group, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin (CBF), Hindenburgdamm 30, 12203, Berlin, Germany.
- Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Luisenstraße 56, 10117, Berlin, Germany.
- Institute of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Rudower Chaussee 18, 12489, Berlin, Germany.
| | - Elke van der Meer
- Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Luisenstraße 56, 10117, Berlin, Germany
- Institute of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Rudower Chaussee 18, 12489, Berlin, Germany
| | - Fabian Klostermann
- Department of Neurology, Motor and Cognition Group, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin (CBF), Hindenburgdamm 30, 12203, Berlin, Germany
- Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Luisenstraße 56, 10117, Berlin, Germany
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32
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Talarico JM. A tetrahedral model of autobiographical memory research design. WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS. COGNITIVE SCIENCE 2023; 14:e1615. [PMID: 35843707 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.1615] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/27/2022] [Revised: 06/13/2022] [Accepted: 06/23/2022] [Indexed: 05/20/2023]
Abstract
The field of autobiographical memory can do more to be representative of global populations experiencing and recollecting diverse events across the lifespan. To inspire such work, I present a general model for designing autobiographical memory studies. The tetrahedral model (based on Jenkins, 1979) has at its vertices context (e.g., the situated environment, activated schema, or functional goal), outcomes (e.g., the content and phenomenology of remembering), participants (e.g., the demographic characteristics and traits of the individual), and events (e.g., the lived experiences that comprise an individual's autobiography). Further, the area of the base of the pyramid can represent the time frame under investigation (e.g., the wider the distance, the greater the delay between an experience and its retrieval) and the height of the pyramid can represent the sample size (e.g., nearly flat for a case study, increasingly taller for larger groups) being studied. After applying the model to describe how typical autobiographical memory research is conducted (and briefly identifying the limitations therein), representative models of particularly promising areas of research are highlighted. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Memory.
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33
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Allé M, Danan F, Kwok S, Davies V, Prudat C, Berna F. Differential influence of first- vs. third-person visual perspectives on segmentation and memory of complex dynamic events. Conscious Cogn 2023; 111:103508. [PMID: 37004356 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2023.103508] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2022] [Revised: 03/08/2023] [Accepted: 03/21/2023] [Indexed: 04/03/2023]
Abstract
Until now, most studies investigating the relationship between event segmentation and memory have used videos filmed from a third-person perspective, although people experience their lives from a first-person perspective. The present study aimed to determine whether visual perspective impacts events segmentation and further recall. Fifty-seven participants were recruited and assigned to either first- (1PP) or third-person perspective (3PP) condition, before segmenting videos of daily life activities. Our results showed that the although the number of event boundaries was higher in the 3PP condition than in the 1PP, no differences were observed for event segmentation qualitative abilities and organization. Memory of temporal order was better for events encoded in the 3PP than in the 1PP, while memory content was similar in both conditions. Higher event segmentation rates were correlated with a better recall of small actions and temporal order.
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34
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Brown KS, Yee E, Joergensen G, Troyer M, Saltzman E, Rueckl J, Magnuson JS, McRae K. Investigating the Extent to which Distributional Semantic Models Capture a Broad Range of Semantic Relations. Cogn Sci 2023; 47:e13291. [PMID: 37183557 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13291] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/05/2021] [Revised: 03/20/2023] [Accepted: 04/07/2023] [Indexed: 05/16/2023]
Abstract
Distributional semantic models (DSMs) are a primary method for distilling semantic information from corpora. However, a key question remains: What types of semantic relations among words do DSMs detect? Prior work typically has addressed this question using limited human data that are restricted to semantic similarity and/or general semantic relatedness. We tested eight DSMs that are popular in current cognitive and psycholinguistic research (positive pointwise mutual information; global vectors; and three variations each of Skip-gram and continuous bag of words (CBOW) using word, context, and mean embeddings) on a theoretically motivated, rich set of semantic relations involving words from multiple syntactic classes and spanning the abstract-concrete continuum (19 sets of ratings). We found that, overall, the DSMs are best at capturing overall semantic similarity and also can capture verb-noun thematic role relations and noun-noun event-based relations that play important roles in sentence comprehension. Interestingly, Skip-gram and CBOW performed the best in terms of capturing similarity, whereas GloVe dominated the thematic role and event-based relations. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our results, make recommendations for users of these models, and demonstrate significant differences in model performance on event-based relations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kevin S Brown
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Oregon State University
- School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering, Oregon State University
| | - Eiling Yee
- Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut
| | | | | | | | - Jay Rueckl
- Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut
| | - James S Magnuson
- Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut
- BCBL, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain, & Language
- Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science
| | - Ken McRae
- Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario
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35
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Pitts BL, Eisenberg ML, Bailey HR, Zacks JM. Cueing natural event boundaries improves memory in people with post-traumatic stress disorder. Cogn Res Princ Implic 2023; 8:26. [PMID: 37103666 PMCID: PMC10140198 DOI: 10.1186/s41235-023-00478-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/21/2022] [Accepted: 04/10/2023] [Indexed: 04/28/2023] Open
Abstract
People with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often report difficulty remembering information in their everyday lives. Recent findings suggest that such difficulties may be due to PTSD-related deficits in parsing ongoing activity into discrete events, a process called event segmentation. Here, we investigated the causal relationship between event segmentation and memory by cueing event boundaries and evaluating its effect on subsequent memory in people with PTSD. People with PTSD (n = 38) and trauma-matched controls (n = 36) watched and remembered videos of everyday activities that were either unedited, contained visual and auditory cues at event boundaries, or contained visual and auditory cues at event middles. PTSD symptom severity varied substantial within both the group with a PTSD diagnosis and the control group. Memory performance did not differ significantly between groups, but people with high symptoms of PTSD remembered fewer details from the videos than those with lower symptoms of PTSD. Both those with PTSD and controls remembered more information from the videos in the event boundary cue condition than the middle cue or unedited conditions. This finding has important implications for translational work focusing on addressing everyday memory complaints in people with PTSD.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | - Jeffrey M Zacks
- Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, 63130, USA.
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36
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Smith ME, Kurby CA, Bailey HR. Events shape long-term memory for story information. DISCOURSE PROCESSES 2023. [DOI: 10.1080/0163853x.2023.2185408] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/29/2023]
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37
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Baczkowski BM, Haaker J, Schwabe L. Inferring danger with minimal aversive experience. Trends Cogn Sci 2023; 27:456-467. [PMID: 36941184 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2023.02.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/14/2022] [Revised: 01/11/2023] [Accepted: 02/23/2023] [Indexed: 03/22/2023]
Abstract
Learning about threats is crucial for survival and fundamentally rests upon Pavlovian conditioning. However, Pavlovian threat learning is largely limited to detecting known (or similar) threats and involves first-hand exposure to danger, which inevitably poses a risk of harm. We discuss how individuals leverage a rich repertoire of mnemonic processes that operate largely in safety and significantly expand our ability to recognize danger beyond Pavlovian threat associations. These processes result in complementary memories - acquired individually or through social interactions - that represent potential threats and the relational structure of our environment. The interplay between these memories allows danger to be inferred rather than directly learned, thereby flexibly protecting us from potential harm in novel situations despite minimal prior aversive experience.
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Affiliation(s)
- Blazej M Baczkowski
- Department of Cognitive Psychology, Universität Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 5, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Jan Haaker
- Department of Systems Neuroscience, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, 20246 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Lars Schwabe
- Department of Cognitive Psychology, Universität Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 5, 20146 Hamburg, Germany.
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38
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He T, Breithaupt F, Kübler S, Hills TT. Quantifying the retention of emotions across story retellings. Sci Rep 2023; 13:2448. [PMID: 36774370 PMCID: PMC9922315 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-29178-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/27/2022] [Accepted: 01/31/2023] [Indexed: 02/13/2023] Open
Abstract
Story retelling is a fundamental medium for the transmission of information between individuals and among social groups. Besides conveying factual information, stories also contain affective information. Though natural language processing techniques have advanced considerably in recent years, the extent to which machines can be trained to identify and track emotions across retellings is unknown. This study leverages the powerful RoBERTa model, based on a transformer architecture, to derive emotion-rich story embeddings from a unique dataset of 25,728 story retellings. The initial stories were centered around five emotional events (joy, sadness, embarrassment, risk, and disgust-though the stories did not contain these emotion words) and three intensities (high, medium, and low). Our results indicate (1) that RoBERTa can identify emotions in stories it was not trained on, (2) that the five emotions and their intensities are preserved when they are transmitted in the form of retellings, (3) that the emotions in stories are increasingly well-preserved as they experience additional retellings, and (4) that among the five emotions, risk and disgust are least well-preserved, compared with joy, sadness, and embarrassment. This work is a first step toward quantifying situation-driven emotions with machines.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tianyou He
- Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry, CV47AL, UK
| | - Fritz Breithaupt
- Department of Germanic Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
- Cognitive Science Program, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
| | - Sandra Kübler
- Cognitive Science Program, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
- Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry, UK
| | - Thomas T Hills
- Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry, CV47AL, UK.
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39
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Laguna-Camacho A. Contextual Specificity of (Un)Healthy Food/Drink Intake in Everyday Life: A Study Based on Episodic Memories. OPEN PSYCHOLOGY 2023. [DOI: 10.1515/psych-2022-0131] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/11/2023] Open
Abstract
Abstract
Identifying the contexts of episodes of (un)healthy food/drink intake could inform strategies for eating more healthily. This study assessed memories of recent episodes of healthy and unhealthy eating from adults in Mexico. For each (un)healthy eating episode participants recalled place, time of day, people present and food/drink intake. Categories were formed for the contextual features and foods/drinks that were reported, then the relative frequency of each category was tested between healthy and unhealthy eating episodes. Overall, there was a large set of categories of (un)healthy food/drink choices, and there were more healthy eating episodes with family at home and unhealthy eating episodes with friends out of home. However, as expected, a more specific context as well as food/drink intake was identified for each sort of recalled (un)healthy eating episode of the day. Additionally, eating out of home, later in the day and with people present were features related to higher estimated energy content across (un)healthy eating episodes. These findings support the assessment of self-reported memories of recent eating episodes to generate evidence that contribute to contexts that support healthy eating habits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antonio Laguna-Camacho
- School of Medicine, Autonomous University of the State of Mexico, Jesús Carranza 105, Colonia Universidad , 50130 , Toluca , Mexico
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40
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You S, Sun L, Yang Y. The effects of contextual certainty on tension induction and resolution. Cogn Neurodyn 2023; 17:191-201. [PMID: 36704622 PMCID: PMC9871111 DOI: 10.1007/s11571-022-09810-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/16/2021] [Revised: 02/21/2022] [Accepted: 04/02/2022] [Indexed: 01/29/2023] Open
Abstract
It is known that tension is a core principle of the generation of music emotion and meaning, and supposed to be induced by prediction in process of music listening. Using EEG and behavioral rating, the current research investigated how contextual certainty affects musical tension induction and resolution. The major results were that in the tension induction process, incongruent conditions elicited larger EN and P600 in ERP responses compared with congruent conditions, and the amplitude of P600, tension ratings were mediated by contextual certainty. In the tension resolution process, contextual certainty further affected the duration of P600 and tension ratings. For the certain conditions, tension ratings were higher, tension curves fluctuated faster, and a larger P600 was evoked in the incongruent condition compared with the congruent condition. For the uncertain conditions, there was no congruency effect on behavioral ratings and tension curves, but a larger P600 was elicited in the congruent condition. These results show that contextual certainty affects tension induction and resolution. Our findings provide a more comprehensive view on how musical prediction affects musical tension.
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Affiliation(s)
- Siqi You
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 16 Lincui Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100101 China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Lijun Sun
- College of Art, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China
| | - Yufang Yang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 16 Lincui Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100101 China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
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41
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Multisensory synchrony of contextual boundaries affects temporal order memory, but not encoding or recognition. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2023; 87:583-597. [PMID: 35482089 PMCID: PMC9047581 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-022-01682-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/12/2021] [Accepted: 04/03/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
We memorize our daily life experiences, which are often multisensory in nature, by segmenting them into distinct event models, in accordance with perceived contextual or situational changes. However, very little is known about how multisensory boundaries affect segmentation, as most studies have focused on unisensory (visual or audio) segmentation. In three experiments, we investigated the effect of multisensory boundaries on segmentation in memory and perception. In Experiment 1, participants encoded lists of pictures while audio and visual contexts changed synchronously or asynchronously. After each list, we tested recognition and temporal associative memory for pictures that were encoded in the same audio-visual context or that crossed a synchronous or an asynchronous multisensory change. We found no effect of multisensory synchrony for recognition memory: synchronous and asynchronous changes similarly impaired recognition for pictures encoded at those changes, compared to pictures encoded further away from those changes. Multisensory synchrony did affect temporal associative memory, which was worse for pictures encoded at synchronous than at asynchronous changes. Follow up experiments showed that this effect was not due to the higher dimensionality of multisensory over unisensory contexts (Experiment 2), nor that it was due to the temporal unpredictability of contextual changes inherent to Experiment 1 (Experiment 3). We argue that participants formed situational expectations through multisensory synchronicity, such that synchronous multisensory changes deviated more strongly from those expectations than asynchronous changes. We discuss our findings in light of supportive and conflicting findings of uni- and multi-sensory segmentation.
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42
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Davis EE, Campbell KL. Event boundaries structure the contents of long-term memory in younger and older adults. Memory 2023; 31:47-60. [PMID: 36107809 DOI: 10.1080/09658211.2022.2122998] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/14/2022]
Abstract
Event boundaries impose structure on how events are stored in long-term memory. Research with young adults has shown that associations within events are stronger than those that cross event boundaries. Recently, this effect was observed in both young and old adults using movie stimuli (Davis, Chemnitz, et al., 2021). Here, we test whether this effect extends to written narratives. Young and old participants read a series of narratives that were interspersed with temporal shifts in the storyline meant to elicit the perception of an event boundary. Later, participants were cued with sentences and were asked to recall the sentence that immediately followed. We expected participants would have worse memory when a cue and correct answer flanked a boundary than when it did not. In Experiment 1, we found that despite older adults' lower performance overall, both age groups had lower accuracy for cues that flanked a boundary, compared to cues that elicited a response from within the same event. Experiment 2 replicated the results from Experiment 1. Our results support past work that did not find age differences in event perception and demonstrate that older and younger adults may store events similarly in long-term memory.
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Affiliation(s)
- E E Davis
- Psychology Department, Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada
| | - K L Campbell
- Psychology Department, Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada
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43
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The effects of domain knowledge and event structure on event processing. Mem Cognit 2023; 51:101-114. [PMID: 35384597 DOI: 10.3758/s13421-022-01309-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 03/22/2022] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Research suggests that domain knowledge facilitates memory for domain-specific information through two mechanisms: differentiation, which involves the ability to identify meaningful, fine-grained details within a sequence, and unitization, which involves binding individual components from a sequence into functional wholes. This study investigated the extent to which individuals engaged in differentiation and unitization when parsing continuous events into discrete, meaningful units (i.e., event segmentation) and recalling them. Participants watched and segmented basketball videos. They then rewatched the videos and provided descriptions afterward. Videos were coded for the presence of higher order goals (A2 actions) and the individual sub-actions that comprised them (A1 actions). Results suggested that event segmentation behavior for participants with less knowledge was more aligned with changes in basic actions (A1 actions) than for participants with greater knowledge. When describing events, participants with greater knowledge were more likely than participants with less knowledge to use statements that reflected unitization.
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44
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Blasi DE, Henrich J, Adamou E, Kemmerer D, Majid A. Over-reliance on English hinders cognitive science. Trends Cogn Sci 2022; 26:1153-1170. [PMID: 36253221 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2022.09.015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/23/2022] [Revised: 09/19/2022] [Accepted: 09/22/2022] [Indexed: 11/05/2022]
Abstract
English is the dominant language in the study of human cognition and behavior: the individuals studied by cognitive scientists, as well as most of the scientists themselves, are frequently English speakers. However, English differs from other languages in ways that have consequences for the whole of the cognitive sciences, reaching far beyond the study of language itself. Here, we review an emerging body of evidence that highlights how the particular characteristics of English and the linguistic habits of English speakers bias the field by both warping research programs (e.g., overemphasizing features and mechanisms present in English over others) and overgeneralizing observations from English speakers' behaviors, brains, and cognition to our entire species. We propose mitigating strategies that could help avoid some of these pitfalls.
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Affiliation(s)
- Damián E Blasi
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 11 Divinity Street, 02138 Cambridge, MA, USA; Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Pl. 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; Human Relations Area Files, 755 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511-1225, USA.
| | - Joseph Henrich
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 11 Divinity Street, 02138 Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Evangelia Adamou
- Languages and Cultures of Oral Tradition lab, National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), 7 Rue Guy Môquet, 94801 Villejuif, France
| | - David Kemmerer
- Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Purdue University, 715 Clinic Drive, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA; Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, 703 3rd Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
| | - Asifa Majid
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG, UK.
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45
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The different effects of breaking an object at different time points. Psychon Bull Rev 2022:10.3758/s13423-022-02210-0. [DOI: 10.3758/s13423-022-02210-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 10/20/2022] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
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46
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Representational dynamics of memories for real-life events. iScience 2022; 25:105391. [DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105391] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/03/2022] [Revised: 09/07/2022] [Accepted: 10/14/2022] [Indexed: 11/05/2022] Open
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47
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Hannah KE, Brown KS, Hall-Bruce M, Stevenson RA, McRae K. Knowledge of the temporal structure of events in relation to autistic traits and social ability. Acta Psychol (Amst) 2022; 231:103779. [PMID: 36327668 DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103779] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2022] [Revised: 09/02/2022] [Accepted: 10/25/2022] [Indexed: 11/05/2022] Open
Abstract
Event knowledge, a person's understanding of patterns of activities in the world, is crucial for everyday social interactions. Social communication differences are prominent in autism, which may be related to atypical event knowledge, such as atypical knowledge of the sequences of activities that comprise the temporal structure of events. Previous research has found that autistic individuals have atypical event knowledge, but research in this area is minimal, particularly regarding autistic individuals' knowledge of the temporal structure of events. Furthermore, no studies have investigated the link between event knowledge and autistic traits in a non-clinical sample. We investigated relationships between event knowledge and autistic traits in individuals from the general population with varying degrees of autistic traits. We predicted that atypical ordering of event activities is related to autistic traits, particularly social communication abilities, but not other clinical traits. In Study 1, atypical ordering of event activities correlated with social ability, but not with most measures of repetitive behaviours and restricted interests. In Study 2, the typicality of activity ordering varied by participants' social ability and the social nature of the events. Relationships were not found between event activity ordering and other clinical traits. These findings suggest a relationship between autistic traits, specifically social abilities, and knowledge of the temporal structure of events in a general population sample.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kara E Hannah
- Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada; Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada.
| | - Kevin S Brown
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, United States
| | - Mikayla Hall-Bruce
- Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
| | - Ryan A Stevenson
- Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada; Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
| | - Ken McRae
- Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada; Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
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48
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Yates TS, Skalaban LJ, Ellis CT, Bracher AJ, Baldassano C, Turk-Browne NB. Neural event segmentation of continuous experience in human infants. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2022; 119:e2200257119. [PMID: 36252007 PMCID: PMC9618143 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2200257119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
How infants experience the world is fundamental to understanding their cognition and development. A key principle of adult experience is that, despite receiving continuous sensory input, we perceive this input as discrete events. Here we investigate such event segmentation in infants and how it differs from adults. Research on event cognition in infants often uses simplified tasks in which (adult) experimenters help solve the segmentation problem for infants by defining event boundaries or presenting discrete actions/vignettes. This presupposes which events are experienced by infants and leaves open questions about the principles governing infant segmentation. We take a different, data-driven approach by studying infant event segmentation of continuous input. We collected whole-brain functional MRI (fMRI) data from awake infants (and adults, for comparison) watching a cartoon and used a hidden Markov model to identify event states in the brain. We quantified the existence, timescale, and organization of multiple-event representations across brain regions. The adult brain exhibited a known hierarchical gradient of event timescales, from shorter events in early visual regions to longer events in later visual and associative regions. In contrast, the infant brain represented only longer events, even in early visual regions, with no timescale hierarchy. The boundaries defining these infant events only partially overlapped with boundaries defined from adult brain activity and behavioral judgments. These findings suggest that events are organized differently in infants, with longer timescales and more stable neural patterns, even in sensory regions. This may indicate greater temporal integration and reduced temporal precision during dynamic, naturalistic perception.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Cameron T. Ellis
- bDepartment of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
| | - Angelika J. Bracher
- cInternational Max Planck Research School NeuroCom, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 04303 Leipzig, Germany
- dDepartment of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and Psychosomatics, University of Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | | | - Nicholas B. Turk-Browne
- aDepartment of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520
- fWu Tsai Institute, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06510
- 1To whom correspondence may be addressed.
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49
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Wyrobnik M, van der Meer E, Klostermann F. Relation between event segmentation and memory dysfunction in Parkinson's disease. Brain Cogn 2022; 163:105912. [PMID: 36084521 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2022.105912] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2021] [Revised: 08/25/2022] [Accepted: 08/29/2022] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
The perception of everyday events is thought to imply the segmentation into discrete sub-events. Involvement of dopaminergic networks in this process could relate to particular problems of persons with Parkinson's disease (PD) to recall recent activities. In an event segmentation task, persons with PD and healthy controls had to indicate the beginning of sub-events within three movies showing persons performing everyday activities. In a subsequent recognition task, they should judge whether presented pictures of sub-events were part of the watched movies. In a final order memory task, they had to arrange pictures in the sequence in which they had occurred. With respect to the overall segmentation behavior, persons with PD diverged from healthy controls only in the most familiar of the three demonstrated everyday activities. Moreover, persons with PD compared to healthy controls showed generally worse event recognition and committed more errors in the order memory task. These memory deficits were the higher, the more the segmentation moved away from the 'normative' segmentation pattern identified in healthy controls. The findings suggest that dysfunctional structuring of sensory event information contributes to deficient event representations of ongoing everyday activities and recall problems of these recently perceived events in persons with PD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michelle Wyrobnik
- Institute of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Rudower Chaussee 18, 12489 Berlin, Germany; Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Luisenstraße 56, 10117 Berlin, Germany; Department of Neurology, Motor and Cognition Group, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin (CBF), Hindenburgdamm 30, 12203 Berlin, Germany.
| | - Elke van der Meer
- Institute of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Rudower Chaussee 18, 12489 Berlin, Germany; Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Luisenstraße 56, 10117 Berlin, Germany
| | - Fabian Klostermann
- Institute of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Rudower Chaussee 18, 12489 Berlin, Germany; Department of Neurology, Motor and Cognition Group, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin (CBF), Hindenburgdamm 30, 12203 Berlin, Germany
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50
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Chiou SC. Effects of spatiotemporal (dis)continuity on working memory for human movements. Acta Psychol (Amst) 2022; 230:103719. [PMID: 36027709 DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103719] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2022] [Revised: 07/20/2022] [Accepted: 08/18/2022] [Indexed: 12/01/2022] Open
Abstract
Human movements are dynamic and continuous in nature. However, how the spatiotemporal continuity influences working memory for movements is still unclear. Specifically, spatiotemporal continuity of movements may facilitate integrative processing ("integration") and enhance memory performance by optimizing the encoding process, but it may also diminish memory benefits from distinctive processing ("separation"). In this study, we manipulated the continuity state (continuous/discontinuous) (Experiment 1) and its predictability (Experiment 2) of whole-body movement sequences and tested participants' working memory for observed movements with a single-probe recognition task. We formulated potential influence from spatiotemporal (dis)continuity by two opposite forces - integration vs. separation, and demonstrated a conflict between these two processes across space and time. Moreover, we found that the seemingly stimulus-driven perceptual effects from spatiotemporal (dis)continuity might be supported by a prediction-based mechanism, which guided the selection of an optimal processing strategy. Overall, our finding illustrates an interweaving relationship between spatial and temporal processing during action observation and highlights the importance of considering the dynamic and continuous nature of human movements in visual perception and working memory research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shiau-Chuen Chiou
- Neurocognition and Action Research Group, Center for Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC), Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany; Faculty of Psychology and Sports Science, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.
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