Episodic memory encoding: fMRI investigations

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The capacity to acquire and retrieve memories of unique events is termed 'episodic memory'. Impairments of episodic memory are prominent in numerous neurological conditions. Episodic memory dysfunction is also found in major psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia and depression. The characterization of episodic memory impairments, elucidation of their roles in the etiology of different disorders, and the development of remedial measures, require an understanding of the cognitive operations that support episodic memory and their neural underpinnings. The proposed research will contribute to this understanding by investigating episodic memory encoding-the processes engaged when an event is experienced that result in a durable memory for the event. Functional magnetic resonance imaging will be employed to investigate event-related neural activity that is predictive of whether or not the event will be later remembered. Such differences in neural activity are termed 'subsequent memory effects', and are candidate neural correlates of successful encoding. Experiments will be conducted to investigate: i) encoding of semantically vs. non-semantically mediated item-context associations; ii) encoding of single versus multiple contextual attributes; iii) study-test compatibility effects; iv) general vs. domain-specific interference with encoding; v) the relationship between pre- and post-stimulus subsequent memory effects.