Examining the role of stimulus complexity in item and associative memory.

Episodic memory comprises memory for individual information units (item memory) and for the connections among them (associative memory). In two experiments using an object pair learning task, we examined the effect of visual stimulus complexity on memory encoding and retrieval mechanisms and on item...

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Publicado en:Memory & Cognition Vol. 53; no. 2; pp. 628 - 645
Autores principales: Endemann, Ricarda, Kamp, Siri-Maria
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Springer Nature Feb2025
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Examining the role of stimulus complexity in item and associative memory.
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        au:
          Endemann, Ricarda
          Kamp, Siri-Maria
        affil: https://ror.org/02778hg05 Department of Neurocognitive Psychology, Trier University, Johanniterufer 15, 54290, Trier, Germany
      su:
        Recognition (Psychology)
        Age distribution
        Memory
        Semantics
        Cognition
        Brain physiology
        Evoked potentials (Electrophysiology)
        Photography
        Visual perception
      sug:
        subj:
          Recognition (Psychology)
          Age distribution
          Memory
          Semantics
          Cognition
          Brain physiology
          Evoked potentials (Electrophysiology)
          Photography
          Visual perception
      keyword:
        Aging
        Associative memory
        Late posterior negativity
        Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Psychology
        Stimulus complexity
        Aging
        Associative memory
        Late posterior negativity
        Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Psychology
        Stimulus complexity
      ab: Episodic memory comprises memory for individual information units (item memory) and for the connections among them (associative memory). In two experiments using an object pair learning task, we examined the effect of visual stimulus complexity on memory encoding and retrieval mechanisms and on item and associative memory performance. Subjects encoded pairs of black monochrome object images (low complexity, LC condition) or color photographs of objects (high complexity, HC condition) via interactive imagery, and subsequently item and associative recognition were tested. In Experiment 1, event-related potentials (ERPs) revealed an enhanced frontal N2 during encoding and an enhanced late posterior negativity (LPN) during item recognition in the HC condition, suggesting that memory traces containing visually more complex objects elicited a stronger effort in reconstructing the past episode. Item memory was consistently superior in the HC compared to the LC condition. Associative memory was either statistically unaffected by complexity (Experiment 1) or improved (Experiment 2) in the HC condition, speaking against a tradeoff between resources allocated to item versus associative memory, and hence contradicting results of some prior studies. In Experiment 2, in both young and older adults, both item and associative memory benefitted from stimulus complexity, such that the magnitude of the age-related associative deficit was not influenced by stimulus complexity. Together, these results suggest that if familiar objects are presented in a form that exhibits a higher visual complexity, which may support semantic processing, complexity can benefit both item and associative memory. Stimulus properties that enhance item memory can scaffold associative memory in this situation.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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