Learning to associate specific objects with value contributes to the human's adaptive behavior. However, the intrinsic nature of associative memory posits a challenge that newly learned associations may interfere with the old ones if they share common features (e.g., a reward). In the present study, we conducted a set of behavioral experiments and…

Few studies have compared interference-based forgetting between item versus associative memory. The memory-system dependent forgetting hypothesis (Hardt, Nader, & Nadel, 2013) predicts that effects of interference on associative memory should be minimal because its hippocampal representation allows pattern separation even of highly similar…

Episodic memories are not veridical records of our lives, but rather are better described as organized summaries of experience. Theories and empirical research suggest that shifts in perceptual, temporal, and semantic information lead to a chunking of our continuous experiences into segments, or "events." However, the consequences of…

False working memories readily emerge using a visual item-recognition variant of the converging associates task. Two experiments, manipulating study and test modality, extended prior working memory results by demonstrating a reliable false recognition effect (more false alarms to associatively related lures than to unrelated lures) within seconds…