ITEM ASSOCIATIVE/CONTEXUAL INFORMATION IN MEMORY

这项研究的重点是基本的神经和认知过程 与从人类获取和检索信息有关 记忆 具体来说，要求受试者形成不同类型 一对单词或一对图片之间的联系 对象 之后，他们会被给予同样的刺激， 以前没有看到过的刺激，并且，对于这些刺激中的每一个，都被要求 判断测试刺激是否在之前出现。 在 在不同的实验中，这些测试刺激可以是单独的单词或 图片按原始顺序成对的单词/图片，成对的 在编码期间， 在测试阶段，受试者大脑的电活动将被 通过事件相关电位（ERP）技术测量， 128个电极的阵列。 这将产生详细的毫秒， 在形成联想时大脑活动的毫秒记录 并从存储器中检索所得到的信息。 在 此外，密集的电极阵列将产生详细的 关于大脑区域的空间/地形信息， 参与其中 这一时间和空间的ERP证据将被 结合每个受试者头部的结构信息 使用ERP源的新方法从MRI扫描中获得 定位，其中MRI图像用于构建 头部的数学模型 然后使用该模型 引导非线性估计过程， 大脑中ERP源的最佳配置。 这些 然后在MRI上绘制源。 这种方法应该使 有可能定位大脑信号， 联想的形成/编码和随后的记忆 检索单个项目以及这些项目之间的关联。 这项研究的重要性不仅在于它作为基础的价值， 对记忆的认知神经科学的研究， 它很可能会导致记忆障碍， 老化和形式的健忘症造成的颞叶和 丘脑损伤 这是因为老年人经常 在“绑定”或在内存中关联不同的困难 情况的各个方面，而大赦者往往不分青红皂白地 过度联想。

This research focuses on basic neural and cognitive processes related to the acquisition and retrieval of information from human memory. Specifically, subjects are required to form different types of associations between pairs of words or pairs of pictures of objects. Later, they are presented with these same stimuli plus stimuli not seen earlier, and, for each of these stimuli, are asked to judge whether the test stimulus had been presented earlier. In different experiments, these test stimuli may be individual words or pictures pairs of words/pictures in the original order, pairs of words/pictures in different orders, etc. During the encoding and test phases, the electrical activity of subjects' brains will be measured by the event-related potential (ERP) technique using an array of 128 electrodes. This wil yield a detailed millisecond by millisecond record of the brain's activity while forming associations and retrieving the resulting information from memory. IN addition, the dense electrode array will yield detailed spatial/topographic information about the areas of the brain that are involved. This temporal and spatial ERP evidence will then be combined with structural information about each subject's head obtained from an MRI scan using a new approach to ERP source localization whereby the MRI image is used to construct a mathematical model of the subject's head. This model is then used to guide a non-linear estimaiton procedure which searches for the best-fitting configuration of ERP sources in the brain. These sources are then plotted on the MRI. This approach should make it possible to localize brain signals corresponding to the formation/encoding of associations and the subsequent memory retrieval of individual items and associations between these items. This research is of importance not only for its value as basic research into the cognitive neuroscience of memory, but also for the insights it is likely to yield into memory disorders involved in aging and forms of amnesia resulting from temporal-lobe and thelamic brain damage. This follows because the elderly frequently have difficulty in "binding" or associating in memory different aspects of a situation, while amnesics frequently indiscriminately over-associate.