Long-Term Visual Gist Abstraction Independent of Post-Encoding Sleep.

ABSTRACT: Current theories of memory processing postulate a slow transformation from episodic to abstract, gist-like memories. We previously demonstrated that sleep shortly after learning improves gist abstraction in healthy volunteers across a one-year retention interval using a visual version of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Here, we investigate the temporal evolution of this effect by testing recognition performance on a similar DRM task immediately after encoding, as well as 1 week and 1 year later. Moreover, we address the role of feature overlap during encoding, using stimulus sets that are either closely related to or more distant from their common prototype. Behavioural data were obtained from N = 16 healthy volunteers in a within-subjects design, where different sets of shape

SUBMITTER: Lutz ND 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12856105 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature