Unitization and the creation of episodic memory: Semantic, spatial, and schematic encoding factor effects on associative recognition and its electrophysiological correlates in young and old adults and cortical lesion patients

本研究项目的主要目的是探索促进单元化的编码操作在什么情况下支持年轻人和老年人的联想识别，以及在记忆和联想记忆受损的患者中。我们假设，单元化提供了一种支持联想记忆的有效方法，因为单元化主要通过增加熟悉度来增加记忆，而熟悉度受老年和脑损伤的影响比回忆更小。我们计划通过使用行为和电生理方法探索编码因素(物体之间的语义和空间关系)和提取因素(语境效应和联想启动)，来确定单元化促进联想记忆的条件。作为第二个研究目标，我们计划在两个以记忆缺陷为特征的人群(中风患者和老年人)中，使用相同的实验范式，直接比较单元化对改善记忆缺陷的价值。在最后一组研究中，我们将调查单元化是否不仅是由于对象之间的焦点语义和空间关系的存在，而且是由于先前存在的语义图式知识的激活。一个首要目标是确定老年人在何种条件下从单元化中受益，以通过补偿性的基于熟悉的记忆来改善他们的联想记忆缺陷。鉴于人口老龄化和学习任意联想在各种教育背景下的高度相关性，更好地理解单元化对形成新颖联想记忆的作用具有重要的理论和实践意义。

The main goal of this research project is to explore the circumstances under which encoding manipulations that promote unitization support associative recognition in young and old adults, and in patients with impairments in recollection and associative remembering. We hypothesize that unitization provides an effective method of supporting associative memory, as unitization increases memory primarily by increasing familiarity, which is less affected by old age and brain lesions than recollection. We plan to identify the conditions under which unitization facilitates associative memory by exploring encoding factors (semantic and spatial relations between objects) and retrieval factors (context effects and associative priming) using behavioral and electrophysiological measures. As a second research goal we plan to directly compare the value of unitization for the amelioration of memory deficits in two populations characterized by recollection deficits (stroke patients and old adults), using the same experimental paradigm in both populations. In a final set of studies, we will investigate whether unitization may be engendered not only by the presence of focal semantic and spatial relations between objects, but also by the activation of preexisting semantic schema knowledge. An overarching goal is to identify conditions under which old adults benefit from unitization to ameliorate their associative memory deficit by compensatory familiarity-based remembering. In light of the aging population and the high relevance of learning arbitrary associations in a variety of educational contexts, a better understanding of the role of unitization for the formation of novel associative memories is of great theoretical and practical relevance.