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Event-Related Potential Measures of Visual Working Memory

Trafton W. Drew, Andrew W. McCollough and Edward K. Vogel

ABSTRACT

Visual working memory is a limited capacity system that temporarily maintains information about objects in the immediate visual environment. Psychophysical experiments have shown that most people are able to actively maintain 3 or 4 items in visual working memory at any point in time. To better understand how this process works and why our working memory capacity is so limited, a variety of neurophysiological approaches have been employed. In recent years, there has been a surge of interest in understanding how visual information is maintained in working memory at the neural level. Single-cell research with non-human primates has shown that neuronal firing during the retention period reflects the information that is currently held in working memory. In humans, event-related potentials (ERPs) have been used to examine the maintenance of information in working memory. An event-related potential component, known as the negative slow wave (NSW), has been used to measure the maintenance of information in working memory “online” during a given trial. More recently, another ERP component, the contralateral delay activity (CDA) has been shown to be a fairly specific correlate of the current contents of working memory. This component is sensitive to an individual’s working memory capacity and may provide a window into the operations of this central cognitive construct.

Electrophysiological Measures of Familiarity Memory

Axel Mecklinger

ABSTRACT

Event-related potentials are a valuable tool for the study of human memory function. This selective review provides a brief introduction in models of recognition memory and then describes how ERPs can be used to investigate familiarity memory, an acontextual form of remembering that can be distinguished from the recollection of detailed information of prior events. ERP studies on the mid-frontal old/new effect, the putative electrophysiological correlate of familiarity memory are reviewed. It will be illustrated how familiarity memory is reflected in this effect, how it can electrophysiologically be dissociated from other forms of memory and which brain systems mediate this form of remembering. Recent studies will be reviewed that illustrate that familiarity is not only restricted to single items but can also support the retrieval of associative information.

Electromagnetic Correlates of Recognition Memory Processes

M. Neufang, H. J. Heinze and E. Düzel

ABSTRACT

Recognition memory is critically dependent on a hierarchically organized network of brain areas including the visual ventral stream, medial temporal lobe structures, frontal and parietal cortices. In recent years, cognitive theories of recognition memory have been helpful to further our understanding of the functional organization of this network. A prominent, although not unchallenged, set of theories proposes that recognition memory is not a unitary phenomenon, but can be based on the recollection of contextual information about events or on familiarity in the absence of recollection. A number of hemodynamic and electromagnetic studies have been undertaken to relate recollection and familiarity to neuronal substrates both in healthy subjects as well as in patients with brain lesions. Today, it is evident that both event-related potential and event-related field (ERP/ERF) data as well as data of oscillatory brain activity (e.g., theta oscillations) are necessary to fully understand the neural dynamics of recollection and familiarity and their relationship to functional anatomy. Ultimately, such data are required from patients with isolated brain injuries to designated components of the networks (such as the hippocampus) to obtain converging evidence for functional relationships between recollection and familiarity and respective neuroanatomic substrates. The complexity of this task is highlighted by findings indicating that recognition memory can already be affected by preparatory processes prior to stimulus onset.

Novelty Detection and Encoding for Declarative Memory Within the Human Hippocampus

Thomas Grunwald and Martin Kurthen

ABSTRACT

Intracranial recordings of cognitive potentials within the human hippocampal system have identified N400 potentials in the anterior mesial temporal lobe (AMTL-N400) that correlate with verbal memory performance and are associated with novelty detection. Their amplitudes to “new” but not “old” words in a verbal recognition task correlate with the neuronal density of the hippocampal CA1-region and can be reduced selectively by the NMDA-receptor blocker ketamine. Moreover, it could be shown that NMDA-receptor dependent long-term potentiation (LTP), a form of synaptic plasticity with Hebbian characteristics, can be readily induced in human hippocampal slices but not in patients with hippocampal sclerosis. In these latter patients, we also found a reduction of AMTL-N400 amplitudes similar to the one induced by ketamine. In addition, we could show that hippocampal novelty detection is associated with successful encoding for declarative memory. Together, our findings suggest that successful encoding for declarative memory is at least in part mediated by NMDA-receptor dependent novelty detection within the human hippocampal system.

Electrophysiological Measures of Episodic Memory Control and Memory Retrieval

E. L. Wilding and J. E. Herron

ABSTRACT

Event-related potentials (ERPs) index processes that occur before, during and after retrieval of information from episodic memory. In this selective review we provide a loose theoretical framework within which retrieval processes operating at these different stages can be considered. We go on to describe how ERPs have been employed in order to index processes operating at each of these stages. These data have contributed to current understanding of the processes that are engaged around the time of episodic memory retrieval, and also illustrate the potential that ERPs have for understanding in detail how memory retrieval processes changes in populations with memory impairments.

Do I Know You? Insights Into Memory for Faces From Brain Potentials

S. G. Boehm and K. A. Paller

ABSTRACT

The recognition of faces is central to human social interaction. Recordings of event-related potentials (ERPs) from the brain can shed light on the various processes that occur when a face is recognized and when knowledge related to a specific person is retrieved. ERP contrasts between processing familiar and processing novel faces offer a gateway into investigations of semantic memory for familiar persons. In particular, activity of face recognition units and semantic information units — memory representations of faces and person-related knowledge, respectively — can be indexed by specific ERPs. These potentials thus provide valuable tools for studying the cognitive and neurobiological architecture of person recognition. ERPs have also been found useful for investigating other types of memory for faces. Specifically, important insights have been derived from the study of a category of memory phenomena known as priming. Priming can be revealed in special tests when face recognition is facilitated based on prior experience. Describing the neural processes associated with memory for faces is an exciting focus of research, and future results from this line of inquiry promise to provide further knowledge about face recognition and the various types of memory that can be provoked by a human face.

Error Detection, Correction, and Prevention in the Brain: A Brief Review of Data and Theories

V. van Veen and C. S. Carter

ABSTRACT

Errors during speeded response tasks are typically immediately followed by a large component in the event-related potential, the error-related negativity; various lines of research have suggested that this component is primarily generated by the anterior cingulate cortex. This error-related activity has generated a high level of interest and investigation by cognitive neuroscientists because of the importance of online action monitoring for theories of cognitive regulation. A subsequent component, the error positivity, has remained more elusive to date. In this review we will discuss some of the extensive research which has suggested that these components are related to performance monitoring, and, should performance be compromised, dynamically adjusting control processes. Furthermore, evidence from patients with mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder, suggests that such illnesses might be understood as resulting in part from disturbances in this action monitoring function.