Déjà vu and the entorhinal cortex: dissociating recollective from familiarity disruptions in a single case patient.

Past research has demonstrated a relationship between déjà vu and the entorhinal cortex in patients with wider medial temporal lobe damage. The aim of the present research was to investigate this crucial link in a patient (MR) with a selective lesion to the left lateral entorhinal cortex to provide a more direct exploration of this relationship. Two experiments investigated the experiences of déjà vécu (using the IDEA questionnaire) and déjà vu (using an adapted DRM paradigm) in MR and a set of matched controls.

Left entorhinal cortex and object recognition.

The present research explored the role of the medial temporal lobes in object memory in the unique patient MR, who has a selective lesion to her left lateral entorhinal cortex. Two experiments explored recognition memory for object identity and object location in MR and matched controls. The results showed that MR had intact performance in an object location task [MR=0.

No evidence for age-related differences in item-method directed forgetting of emotional words.

Research indicates that people can intentionally forget, but it is less clear how ageing and emotion interact with this ability. The present research investigated item-method directed forgetting of negative, neutral, and positive words in young (20-35 years), young-old (60-74 years), and old-old (75-89 years) adults. Although old-old adults showed overall reduced memory compared to young and young-old adults, all three age groups showed intentional forgetting.

Selective lesion to the entorhinal cortex leads to an impairment in familiarity but not recollection.

The present research explored the effects of selective impairment to the entorhinal cortex on the processes of familiarity and recollection. To achieve this objective, the performance of patient MR, who has a selective impairment of the left entorhinal cortex, was compared to that of age and IQ-matched controls. Four experiments tested participants' recognition memory for familiar and unfamiliar faces and words.

Frontal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) abolishes list-method directed forgetting.

It is a point of controversy as to whether directed forgetting effects are a result of active inhibition or a change of context initiated by the instruction to forget. In this study we test the causal role of active inhibition in directed forgetting. By applying cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the right prefrontal cortex we suppressed cortical activity commonly associated with inhibitory control.

Effects of glucose administration on category exclusion recognition.

Previous research has produced discrepant findings as to whether glucose administration effects lead to enhanced recollection or arise only under dual-task conditions. The aim of the present research was to address these issues by firstly employing an alternative cognitively demanding paradigm that has been linked to hippocampal function, i.e.

Interaction between mode of learning and subjective experience: translation effects in long-term memory.

It has been suggested that writing auditorily presented words at encoding involves distinctive translation processes between visual and auditory domains, leading to the formation of distinctive memory traces at retrieval. This translation effect leads to higher levels of recognition than the writing of visually presented words, a non-translation effect. The present research investigated whether writing and the other translation effect of vocalisation (vocalising visually presented words) would be present in tests of recall, recognition memory and whether these effects are based on the subjective experience of remembering or knowing.

Differential facilitative effects of glucose administration on Stroop task conditions.

Previous research has demonstrated that glucose administration improves memory performance. These glucose facilitation effects have been most reliably demonstrated in medial temporal lobe tasks with the greatest effects found for cognitively demanding tasks. The aim of the proposed research was to first explore whether such effects might be demonstrated in a frontal lobe task.

Forgetting emotional and neutral words: an ERP study.

Previous research has demonstrated that emotional material is more likely to be remembered than neutral material (Hamann, 2001). The present study employed the item-method of directed forgetting in order to examine whether emotionally negative words are not only easier to remember, but also harder to forget. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were additionally measured in order to investigate the processes of selective rehearsal and active inhibition in directed forgetting.

The effects of glucose dose and dual-task performance on memory for emotional material.

Whilst previous research has shown that glucose administration can boost memory performance, research investigating the effects of glucose on memory for emotional material has produced mixed findings. Whereas some research has shown that glucose impairs memory for emotional material, other research has shown that glucose has no effect on emotional items. The aim of the present research was therefore to provide further investigation of the role of glucose on the recognition of words with emotional valence by exploring effects of dose and dual-task performance, both of which affect glucose facilitation effects.

Impairment of recollection but not familiarity in a case of developmental amnesia.

In a re-examination of the recognition memory of Jon, a young adult with developmental amnesia due to perinatal hippocampal damage, we used a test procedure that provides estimates of the separate contributions to recognition of recollection and familiarity. Comparison between Jon and his controls revealed that, whereas he was unimpaired in the familiarity process, he showed abnormally low levels of recollection, supporting the view that the hippocampus mediates the latter process selectively.

Charting the acquisition of semantic knowledge in a case of developmental amnesia.

We report the acquisition and recall of novel facts by Jon, a young adult with early onset developmental amnesia whose episodic memory is gravely impaired due to selective bilateral hippocampal damage. Jon succeeded in learning some novel facts but compared with a control group his intertrial retention was impaired during acquisition and, except for the most frequently repeated facts, he was also less accurate in correctly sourcing these facts to the experiment. The results further support the hypothesis that despite a severely compromised episodic memory and hippocampal system, there is nevertheless the capacity to accrue semantic knowledge available to recall.

Reinstating effortful encoding operations at test enhances episodic remembering.

Two experiments investigated the effects of reinstating encoding operations on remember and know responses in recognition memory. Experiment 1 showed that reinstating an effortful encoding task (generating words from fragments) increased remember responses at test but reinstating an automatic encoding task (reading intact words) did not. This pattern was confirmed in Experiment 2 in which words were either read intact or generated from anagrams.

Effects of level of processing but not of task enactment on recognition memory in a case of developmental amnesia.

We report the performance in four recognition memory experiments of Jon, a young adult with early-onset developmental amnesia whose episodic memory is gravely impaired in tests of recall, but seems relatively preserved in tests of recognition, and who has developed normal levels of performance in tests of intelligence and general knowledge. Jon's recognition performance was enhanced by deeper levels of processing in comparing a more meaningful study task with a less meaningful one, but not by task enactment in comparing performance of an action with reading an action phrase. Both of these variables normally enhance episodic remembering, which Jon claimed to experience.

Using semantic memory to boost 'episodic' recall in a case of developmental amnesia.

We report two experiments that investigated factors that might boost 'episodic' recall for Jon, a developmental amnesic whose episodic memory is gravely impaired but whose semantic memory seems relatively normal. Experiment 1 showed that Jon's recall improved following a semantic study task compared with a non-semantic study task, as well as following four repeated study trials compared with only one. Experiment 2 additionally revealed that Jon's recall improved after acting compared with reading action phrases at study, but only if the phrases were well integrated semantically.

The effect of glucose administration on the emotional enhancement effect in recognition memory.

Previous research has demonstrated that glucose administration improves memory performance. However few studies have addressed the effects of glucose on emotional material that by nature already enjoys a memory advantage. The aim of the present research was therefore to investigate whether the memory facilitation effect associated with glucose would emerge for emotional words.

The distinctiveness effect in forenames: the role of subjective experiences and recognition memory.

We describe two experiments that tested the prediction that distinctive forenames would be better recognized than typical forenames and which investigated whether this distinctiveness effect, if obtained, occurred in subjective experiences of the recollective or familiarity components of recognition memory. To that end, the remember-know paradigm was used to measure people's experiences of recollection or familiarity. The results revealed that distinctive forenames were more memorable than typical forenames and that that this distinctiveness effect was present only in the subjective experience of remembering.

Measuring the speed of the conscious components of recognition memory: remembering is faster than knowing.

Three experiments investigated response times (RTs) for remember and know responses in recognition memory. RTs to remember responses were faster than RTs to know responses, regardless of whether the remember-know decision was preceded by an old/new decision (two-step procedure) or was made without a preceding old/new decision (one-step procedure). The finding of faster RTs for R responses was also found when remember-know decisions were made retrospectively.

Intention to learn influences the word frequency effect in recall but not in recognition memory.

Watkins, LeCompte, and Kim (2000) suggested that the recall advantage for rare words in mixed lists is due to a compensatory study strategy that favors the rare words. They found the advantage was reversed when rare and common words were studied under incidental learning conditions. The present study investigated the possibility that the rare-word advantage in recognition memory is also the result of a compensatory study strategy.

Remembering or knowing others? Person recognition and recollective experience.

Using Tulving's (1985) remember/know procedure, the present research investigated the experiential concomitants of person recognition. Noting basic differences in the manner in which the mind processes expectancy-related material, it was anticipated that facial typicality would be a critical determinant of people's recollective experiences (i.e.