Neural Overlap in Item Representations Across Episodes Impairs Context Memory.

ABSTRACT: We frequently encounter the same item in different contexts, and when that happens, memories of earlier encounters can get reactivated. We examined how existing memories are changed as a result of such reactivation. We hypothesized that when an item's initial and subsequent neural representations overlap, this allows the initial item to become associated with novel contextual information, interfering with later retrieval of the initial context. Specifically, we predicted a negative relationship between representational similarity across repeated experiences of an item and subsequent source memory for the initial context. We tested this hypothesis in an fMRI study, in which objects were presented multiple times during different tasks. We measured the similarity of the neural patterns in lat

SUBMITTER: Kim G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6519698 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature