scholarly journals The precision of retrieving temporal information : behavioral and electrophysiological studies

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
John E. Scofield

The knowledge of when an event took place provides benefits to episodic memory, such as distinguishing among multiple traces and learning event sequences. As a tool for understanding memory, time is appealing given its ever-changing quality, and the ease with which it is targeted at retrieval. Whereas studies of episodic retrieval typically employ categorical measures of retrieval, characterizing a continuous feature such as time warrants measures sensitive to the precision of retrieved information. Through four experiments, we adapted a paradigm for assessing the fine-grained precision of retrieval to understand the nature of judging the time at which a memory was encoded. Subjects studied a series of pictures and were subsequently tested on when they previously studied items. Temporal judgments were less accurate with passing time, with negligible guessing. Neurally, ERP amplitudes in left parietal electrodes tracked the precision of temporal judgments, with higher ERP amplitudes associated with better precision. Additionally, frequency power in both the alpha and theta bands were associated with temporal precision. Finally, while testing spatial retrieval, a correspondence emerged between spatial and temporal precision on a trial to trial basis, but a dissociation was found in which the recency effects found in temporal judgments was not present in spatial judgments. Together, these findings elucidate the role of time and space in episodic memory retrieval.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John E. Scofield ◽  
Jeffrey D Johnson

Knowing when an event took place can provide several benefits to episodic memory, such as distinguishing among multiple traces, learning sequences of events, and guiding a search strategy. As a tool for understanding memory, time is particularly appealing given its ever-changing quality, the constant possibility to associate it with encoded events, and the ease with which it can be targeted at retrieval. Whereas studies of episodic retrieval typically employ categorical and probabilistic measures of retrieval success, characterizing a continuous feature such as time warrants measures particularly sensitive to the fidelity, or precision, of retrieved information. Here, we adapt a paradigm for assessing the fine-grained precision of retrieval to understand the nature of judging the time at which a memory was encoded. Subjects studied a series of pictures and then undertook a test in which they placed each picture, as precisely as possible, along a continuous timeline representing the study list. Based on mixture-modeling analyses of the test response errors, the primary results were that temporal judgments were less accurate with passing time, and this change was due to diminished precision as opposed to an increased rate of guessing. Moreover, although we observed a negligible influence of guessing, subjects exhibited a clear effect of bias that favored recent responses. Together, in contrast to numerous studies of memory for other continuous features (e.g., color and location), our findings demonstrate a novel pattern of decision factors, suggesting that the retrieval of time might highlight distinct attributes of episodic memory.


eLife ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob LS Bellmund ◽  
Lorena Deuker ◽  
Christian F Doeller

Remembering event sequences is central to episodic memory and presumably supported by the hippocampal-entorhinal region. We previously demonstrated that the hippocampus maps spatial and temporal distances between events encountered along a route through a virtual city (Deuker et al., 2016), but the content of entorhinal mnemonic representations remains unclear. Here, we demonstrate that multi-voxel representations in the anterior-lateral entorhinal cortex (alEC) — the human homologue of the rodent lateral entorhinal cortex — specifically reflect the temporal event structure after learning. Holistic representations of the sequence structure related to memory recall and the timeline of events could be reconstructed from entorhinal multi-voxel patterns. Our findings demonstrate representations of temporal structure in the alEC; dovetailing with temporal information carried by population signals in the lateral entorhinal cortex of navigating rodents and alEC activations during temporal memory retrieval. Our results provide novel evidence for the role of the alEC in representing time for episodic memory.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob L.S. Bellmund ◽  
Lorena Deuker ◽  
Christian F. Doeller

AbstractRemembering event sequences is central to episodic memory and thought to be supported by the hippocampal-entorhinal region. We previously demonstrated that the hippocampus maps spatial and temporal distances between events encountered along a fixed route through a virtual city (Deuker et al., 2016), but the content of entorhinal mnemonic representations remains unclear. Here, we demonstrate that, after learning, multi-voxel representations in the anterior-lateral entorhinal cortex (alEC) specifically reflect the temporal event structure. Holistic representations of the temporal structure related to memory recall and the temporal event structure could be reconstructed from entorhinal multi-voxel patterns. Our findings demonstrate representations of temporal structure in the alEC in line with temporal information carried by population signals in the lateral entorhinal cortex of navigating rodents and activations of its human homologue during temporal memory retrieval. Our results provide novel evidence for the role of the human alEC in representing time for episodic memory.


2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul S. Merritt ◽  
Adam Cobb ◽  
Luke Moissinac ◽  
Corpus Christi ◽  
Elliot Hirshman

Author(s):  
Nancy Farriss

Language and translation governed the creation of Mexican Christianity during the first centuries of colonial rule. Spanish missionaries collaborated with indigenous intellectuals to communicate the gospel in dozens of local languages that had previously lacked grammars, dictionaries, or alphabetic script. The major challenge to translators, more serious than the absence of written aids or the great diversity of languages and their phonetic and syntactical complexity, was the vast cultural difference between the two worlds. The lexical gaps that frustrated the search for equivalence in conveying fundamental Christian doctrines derived from cultural gaps that separated European experiences and concepts from those of the Indians. This study focuses on the Otomangue languages of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, especially Zapotec, and relates their role in the Dominican evangelizing program to the larger frame of culture contact in postconquest Mesoamerica. Fine-grained analysis of translated texts is used to reveal the rhetorical strategies of missionary discourse and combines with an examination of language contact in different social contexts. A major aim is to spotlight the role of the native elites in shaping what emerged as a new form of Christianity. As translators, chief catechists, and parish administrators they made evangelization in many respects an indigenous enterprise and the Mexican church it created an indigenous church.


2021 ◽  
pp. 089331892199807
Author(s):  
Jonathan Clifton ◽  
Fernando Fachin ◽  
François Cooren

To date there has been little work that uses fine-grained interactional analyses of the in situ doing of leadership to make visible the role of non-human as well as human actants in this process. Using transcripts of naturally-occurring interaction as data, this study seeks to show how leadership is co-achieved by artefacts as an in-situ accomplishment. To do this we situate this study within recent work on distributed leadership and argue that it is not only distributed across human actors, but also across networks that include both human and non-human actors. Taking a discursive approach to leadership, we draw on Actor Network Theory and adopt a ventriloquial approach to sociomateriality as inspired by the Montreal School of organizational communication. Findings indicate that artefacts “do” leadership when a hybrid presence is made relevant to the interaction and when this presence provides authoritative grounds for influencing others to achieve the group’s goals.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Rivera-Lillo ◽  
Emmanuel A. Stamatakis ◽  
Tristan A. Bekinschtein ◽  
David K. Menon ◽  
Srivas Chennu

AbstractThe overt or covert ability to follow commands in patients with disorders of consciousness is considered a sign of awareness and has recently been defined as cortically mediated behaviour. Despite its clinical relevance, the brain signatures of the perceptual processing supporting command following have been elusive. This multimodal study investigates the temporal spectral pattern of electrical brain activity to identify features that differentiated healthy controls from patients both able and unable to follow commands. We combined evidence from behavioural assessment, functional neuroimaging during mental imagery and high-density electroencephalography collected during auditory prediction, from 21 patients and 10 controls. We used a penalised regression model to identify command following using features from electroencephalography. We identified seven well-defined spatiotemporal signatures in the delta, theta and alpha bands that together contribute to identify DoC subjects with and without the ability to follow command, and further distinguished these groups of patients from controls. A fine-grained analysis of these seven signatures enabled us to determine that increased delta modulation at the frontal sensors was the main feature in command following patients. In contrast, higher frequency theta and alpha modulations differentiated controls from both groups of patients. Our findings highlight a key role of spatiotemporally specific delta modulation in supporting cortically mediated behaviour including the ability to follow command. However, patients able to follow commands nevertheless have marked differences in brain activity in comparison with healthy volunteers.


2021 ◽  
pp. 003329412199778
Author(s):  
Luca Tisu ◽  
Andrei Rusu ◽  
Coralia Sulea ◽  
Delia Vîrgă

Job resources play a prominent role in employee performance literature, yet a fine-grained understanding of how resources are relevant for several performance types is still needed. Relying on the Job Demands-Resources and Conservation of Resources theories, the present study addresses this call in two ways. First, it examines the predictive effect of four job resources (i.e., role clarity, feedback, autonomy, and opportunities for development) on nine types of performance (i.e., proficiency, adaptivity, and proactivity as an individual, team, and organization member). Second, it tests the moderator role of strengths use in these relationships. Data was gathered from a sample of Romanian employees (N = 332) and analyzed via hierarchical multiple linear regression. The results indicate that the selected job resources are, indeed, predictors of different types of employee performance and not in a unitary manner. Role clarity and feedback appear to be the most relevant predictors for various performance types, while autonomy seems to be the least important. Also, strengths use moderates these relationships, but in a reinforcing manner only regarding opportunities for development. The interaction of strengths use with role clarity and feedback renders the latter two obsolete, indicating that individual strategies may act as substitutes for job resources. These findings add to the Job Demands-Resources theory's versatile nature and provide more clarity to practitioners who plan interventions to enhance specific performance types, taking individual strategies into account.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 278-279
Author(s):  
Feilong Wang ◽  
Shijie Li ◽  
Kaifa Wang ◽  
Yanni Yang

Abstract Older adults with subjective memory complaints (SMCs) are at increased risk for episodic memory decline. Episodic memory decline is an important predictor of objective memory impairment (one of the earliest symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease) and an often-suggested criterion of successful memory aging. Therefore, it is important to explore the determinant factors that influence episodic memory in older adults with SMCs. Roy adaptation model and preliminary evidence suggest that older adults with SMCs undergo a coping and adaptation process, a process influenced by many health-related risks and protective factors. This study aimed to explore the relationship between coping capacity and episodic memory, and the mediating role of healthy lifestyle between coping capacity and episodic memory in a sample of 309 community-dwelling older adults with SMCs. Results from the structural equation modeling showed that coping capacity directly affects episodic memory (r=0.629, p<0.001), and there is a partial mediating effect (60.5%) of healthy lifestyle among this sample of older adults with SMCs. This study demonstrates that coping capacity and adaptation positively correlate with episodic memory in older adults with SMCs, and that these correlations are mediated by healthy lifestyle. The results suggest that older adults with poor coping capacity should be assessed and monitored regularly, and clear lifestyle-related interventions initiated by healthcare providers that promote healthy lifestyles may effectively improve coping capacity and episodic memory in this population group. Note: First author: Feilong Wang, Co-first author: Shijie li, Corresponding author: Yanni Yang


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