Generalization of Semantic Learning in Amnesia

失忆症语义学习的推广

• 批准号: 6674912
• 负责人: BARRY GORDON
• 金额: $ 14.72万
• 依托单位: JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-09-15 至 2005-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6674912
• 关键词: behavioral /social science research tag; brain injury; clinical research; cues; eye movements; human subject; learning; magnetic resonance imaging; memory; memory disorders; neuropsychological tests; psychomotor reaction time; semantics; temporal lobe /cortex; visual stimulus

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Individuals with amnesia caused by medial temporal lobe (MTL) damage have marked difficulties learning new semantic (factual) and episodic information. Furthermore, what semantic information they can learn typically seems to be hyperspecific and cannot be flexibly applied. This limitation has been theoretically important. It has been interpreted as indicating that one of the functions of the MTL is to generalize incoming information, by coarse coding and by distributing connections among related information. However, learning without the MTL may not be as hyperspecific as data from amnesia may suggest. The errorless training methods that have been used to teach factual information to individuals with amnesia may encourage narrow, inflexible learning. Moreover, it has been shown empirically that learning can be made more general and more flexible by introducing variance into the materials to be learned. Neural network theorizing has suggested an explanation for this, in terms of the creation and broadening of basins of attraction in memory. Theoretical considerations also suggest that the timing of such training may also be very important. Accordingly, we will study individuals with amnesia caused by MTL damage (confirmed by 3D MRI reconstructions) and matched controls on two types of material: factual information (three word, subject-verb-object sentences such as Harry loves Sally); and face-name associations. Training in the Variance Condition will introduce variations into the verb (loves -> adores) or into the face (different views) and be compared to training without such variations in the No-Variance Condition. Furthermore, the effect of the timing in training when variations are introduced (from the beginning or after the canonical item has been introduced) will be tested. We expect that introducing variation into training will help the material that is learned become more generalizable and more flexible. In addition to standard measures of recall and recognition accuracy, we will also assess learning using reaction time and looking time techniques. Preliminary data from one amnesic individual studied so far supports our predictions and provides evidence for the feasibility and potential theoretical and practical yields of the proposed research. Therefore, the proposed studies will apply evidence and innovative notions from several different areas of investigation to the scientifically important problem of amnesia due to MTL damage. The results from this study would be expected to help initiate new lines of investigation into the interrelated challenges as to what fundamental mechanisms are involved in memory and what the best approaches are for learning new semantic information.

描述(申请人提供)：由内侧颞叶(MTL)损伤引起的健忘症患者在学习新的语义(事实)和情节信息方面有明显的困难。此外，他们可以学习的语义信息通常似乎是超具体的，不能灵活地应用。这一限制在理论上一直很重要。它被解释为表明MTL的功能之一是通过粗略编码和在相关信息之间分配连接来概括传入信息。然而，没有MTL的学习可能并不像来自健忘症的数据所显示的那样具有高度特异性。用于向健忘症患者传授事实信息的无错误培训方法可能会鼓励狭隘、僵化的学习。此外，经验表明，通过在要学习的材料中引入差异，可以使学习变得更加普遍和灵活。神经网络理论对此提出了一种解释，即记忆中吸引力盆地的产生和扩大。理论上的考虑也表明，这种培训的时机可能也非常重要。因此，我们将研究MTL损伤引起的健忘症患者(经3D MRI重建证实)和两种材料上的匹配对照组：事实信息(三个单词，主语-动词-宾语句子，如Harry Love Sally)；以及面孔-名字关联。在变化条件下的训练将在动词(Love-&gt；adore)或脸(不同的观点)中引入变化，并与在无变化条件下没有变化的训练进行比较。此外，当引入变化时(从开始或在引入规范项之后)，将测试训练中的时机的影响。我们预计，在培训中引入变化将有助于所学材料变得更具普遍性和灵活性。除了标准的回忆和识别准确率的衡量标准外，我们还将使用反应时间和注视时间技术来评估学习。到目前为止，来自一名健忘症患者的初步数据支持了我们的预测，并为拟议研究的可行性和潜在的理论和实践成果提供了证据。因此，拟议的研究将应用来自几个不同调查领域的证据和创新概念来解决MTL损伤导致的具有重要科学意义的健忘症问题。这项研究的结果将有助于启动关于记忆中涉及哪些基本机制以及学习新语义信息的最佳方法等相互关联的挑战的新的研究思路。