Post-retrieval Distortions of Self-Referential Negative Memory: Valence Consistency Enhances Gist-Directed False, While Non-negative Interference Generates More Intrusive Updates

According to the theory of reconsolidation, the contents of an original memory can be updated after reactivation with subsequent new learnings. However, there seems to be a lack of an appropriate behavioral paradigm to study the reconsolidation of explicit self-related memory, which is of great significance to further explore its cognitive neural mechanism in the future. In two separate experiments, we adapted a trial-by-trial interfering paradigm with a self-episodic simulation process and investigated (1) whether it is possible to reconsolidate negative memories under the new behavioral paradigm and (2) how the emotional valence of post-retrieval interference material affects the reconsolidation of negative memories. The results showed that the negative memories under trial-by-trial self-simulation can be degraded and updated via post-retrieval interference processes. Individuals whose original memories were reactivated by initial background cues and who were then presented with new interference situations were less able to recall original scenes and showed more memory intrusions on these scenes than those who had experienced new learning without reactivation or only reactivation without interference. Furthermore, the extent and manner of memory change/updating were greatly influenced by the characteristics of interference information. For memories with negative valences, new learning materials with the same valence produced superior interference effects in the form of lower correct recalls and more integrated false; whereas the neutral interference materials can cause more memory intrusion. Post-retrieval memory distortions of negative self-memory may underlie different functional mechanisms.

Prediction advantage as retrieval interference: an ACT-R model of processing possessive pronouns

We propose a retrieval interference-based explanation of a prediction advantage effect observed in Stone et al. (2021). They reported two dual-task eye-tracking experiments in which participants listened to instructions involving German possessive pronouns, e.g. ‘Click on his blue button’, and were asked to select the correct object from a set of objects displayed on screen. Participants’ eye movements showed predictive processing, such that the target object was fixated before its name was heard. Moreover, when the target and the antecedent of the pronoun matched in gender, predictions arose earlier than when the two genders mismatched — a prediction advantage. We propose that the prediction advantage arises due to similarity-based interference during antecedent retrieval, such that the overlap of gender features between the antecedent and possessum boosts the activation level of the latter and helps predict it faster. We report an ACT-R model supporting this hypothesis. Our model also provides a computational implementation of the idea that prediction can be thought of as memory retrieval. In addition, we provide a preliminary ACT-R model of how linguistic processes could drive changes in visual attention.

Propranolol-induced inhibition of unconditioned stimulus-reactivated fear memory prevents the return of fear in humans

Fear memories can be reactivated by a fear-associated conditioned stimulus (CS) or unconditioned stimulus (US) and then undergo reconsolidation. Propranolol administration during CS retrieval-induced reconsolidation can impair fear memory that is specific to the reactivated CS. However, from a practical perspective, the US is often associated with multiple CSs, and each CS can induce a fear response. The present study sought to develop and test a US-based memory retrieval interference procedure with propranolol to disrupt the original fear memory and eliminate all CS-associated fear responses in humans. We recruited 127 young healthy volunteers and conducted three experiments. All of the subjects acquired fear conditioning, after which they received the β-adrenergic receptor antagonist propranolol (40 mg) or placebo (vitamin C) and were exposed to the US or CS to reactivate the original fear memory. Fear responses were measured. Oral propranolol administration 1 h before US retrieval significantly decreased subsequent fear responses and disrupted associations between all CSs and the US. However, propranolol administration before CS retrieval only inhibited the fear memory that was related to the reactivated CS. Moreover, the propranolol-induced inhibition of fear memory reconsolidation that was retrieved by the US had a relatively long-lasting effect (at least 2 weeks) and was also effective for remote fear memory. These findings indicate that the US-based memory retrieval interference procedure with propranolol can permanently decrease the fear response and prevent the return of fear for all CSs in humans. This procedure may open new avenues for treating fear-related disorders.

A cross-linguistic investigation of proactive, similarity-based retrieval interference in sentence comprehension: No support from English, German and Russian eye-tracking data

Cue-based parsing theories posit that dependency resolution during real-time sentence comprehension relies on cue-based retrieval of linguistic items encoded in memory. This retrieval mechanism is prone to similarity-based interference, which can occur when there are items in memory that are similar to the retrieval target. Interference during sentence comprehension seems to be well-established across numerous syntactic dependencies; however, the evidence for interference on within-sentence dependencies from sentence-external lexical items (encoded in memory prior to reading a target dependency) is inconclusive (Van Dyke &McElree, 2006; Van Dyke et al., 2014). The goal of the present study is to provide a large-scale cross-linguistic investigation of retrieval interference from sentence-external distractors under varying processing demands. Three larger-sample eye-tracking studies in English (N=66),German (N=122) and Russian (N=109) show no support for similarity-based interference from sentence-external material during sentence comprehension. We discuss the implications of our findings for cue-based parsing theories.

A principled approach to feature selection in models of sentence processing

Among theories of human language comprehension, cue-based memory retrieval has proven to be a useful framework for understanding when and how processing difficulty arises in the resolution of long-distance dependencies. Most previous work in this area has assumed that very general retrieval cues like [+subject] or [+singular] do the work of identifying (and sometimes misidentifying) a retrieval target in order to establish a dependency between words. However, recent work suggests that general, hand-picked retrieval cues like these may not be enough to explain illusions of plausibility (Cunnings & Sturt, 2018), which can arise in sentences like The letter next to the porcelain plate shattered. Capturing such retrieval interference effects requires lexically specific features and retrieval cues, but hand-picking the features is hard to do in a principled way and greatly increases modeler degrees of freedom. To remedy this, we use word embeddings, a well-established method for creating distributed feature representations, for lexical features and retrieval cues. We show that the similarity between the features and the cues (a measure of plausibility) predicts total reading times in Cunnings and Sturt’s eye-tracking data. The features can easily be plugged into existing parsing models (including cue-based retrieval and self-organized parsing), putting very different models on more equal footing and facilitating future quantitative comparisons. In addition to this methodological contribution, our results suggest that, contrary to Cunnings and Sturts’ original conclusions, focused words might be more prominent in memory, making them less susceptible to interference, as predicted by a recent extension to ACT-R (Engelmann, Jäger, & Vasishth, 2019).

Looking forward does not mean forgetting about the past: ERP evidence for the interplay of predictive coding and interference during language processing

Interference and prediction have independently been identified as crucial influencing factors during language processing. However, their interaction remains severely underinvestigated. Furthermore, the neurobiological basis of cue-based retrieval and retrieval interference during language processing remains insufficiently understood. Here, we present an ERP experiment that systematically examined the interaction of interference and prediction during language processing. We used the neurobiologically well-established predictive coding framework and insights regarding the neuronal mechanisms of memory for the theoretical framing of our study. German sentence pairs were presented word-by-word, with an article in the second sentence constituting the critical word. We analyzed mean single trial EEG activity in the N400 time window and found an interaction between interference and prediction (measured by cloze probability). Under high predictability, no interference effects were observable. Under the predictive coding account, highly predictable input is totally explained by top-down activity. Therefore the input induces no retrieval operations which could be influenced by interference. In contrast, under low predictability, conditions with high interference or with a close, low-interference distractor showed a broadly distributed negativity compared to conditions with a distant, low-interference distractor. We interpret this result as showing that when unpredicted input induces model updating, this may elicit memory retrieval including the evaluation of distractor items, thus leading to interference effects. We conclude that interference should be included in predictive coding-based accounts of language because prediction errors can trigger retrieval operations and, therefore, induce interference.

The grammaticality asymmetry in agreement attraction reflects response bias: Experimental and modeling evidence

Memory access mechanisms such as cue-based retrieval have come to dominate theories of the processing of linguistic dependencies such as subject-verb agreement. One phenomenon that has been regarded as demonstrating the role of such mechanisms is the grammaticality asymmetry in agreement attraction, which is the observation that nouns other than the grammatical controller of agreement can influence the computation of subject-verb agreement in ungrammatical, but not grammatical, sentences. This asymmetry is most often accounted for via the dynamics of retrieval interference. We challenge this interpretation, arguing that the asymmetry largely reflects response bias. Three forced-choice judgment experiments show that neutralizing response bias results in a decrease in the size of the grammaticality asymmetry, or its elimination altogether. Together with the response time patterns in these experiments, this result favors an account that attributes attraction effects to a continuous and equivocal representation of number, rather than to the dynamics of retrieval interference. We implement a model of grammaticality judgments that links a continuous representation of number to the rate of evidence accumulation in a diffusion process. This model accounts for the presence or absence of the grammaticality asymmetry through shifts in the decisional starting point (i.e. response bias), and highlights the importance of monitoring for response bias effects in judgment tasks.