The human mind has two types of memory: short-term and long-term. In all types of learning, it is best to use that structure rather than to fight against it. One way to do that is to ensure that learners can fit new information into patterns that can be stored in and more easily retrieved from long-term memory.

Objective: Recent theoretical and empirical work suggests that while unmedicated, children with ADHD have a deficit in subcortical processing that leads to greater and more varied prefrontal cortical (PFC) activation, compared to (a) age-matched control participants and (b) their own brain activity while on stimulant medication. This pattern has…

Does the capacity of visual short-term memory (VSTM) depend on the complexity of the objects represented in memory? Although some previous findings indicated lower capacity for more complex stimuli, other results suggest that complexity effects arise during retrieval (due to errors in the comparison process with what is in memory) that is not…

Testing spatial memory within the same environment used for learning produces interference between one's immediate representation of current position and the to-be-retrieved position. In a series of 3 experiments, we show that "current position" and its influence on memory performance can be driven by conceptual factors in an ambiguous…

In differentiation models, the processes of encoding and retrieval produce an increase in the distribution of memory strength for targets and a decrease in the distribution of memory strength for foils as the amount of encoding increases. This produces an increase in the hit rate and decrease in the false-alarm rate for a strongly encoded compared…

We examined the roles of the amygdala and hippocampus in the formation of emotionally relevant memories using an ethological model of conditioned fear termed conditioned defeat (CD). Temporary inactivation of the ventral, but not dorsal hippocampus (VH, DH, respectively) using muscimol disrupted the acquisition of CD, whereas pretraining VH…

Autobiographical memory impairments in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have been attributed to a failure in using the self as an effective memory organisational system. To explore this hypothesis, we compared self-defining and everyday memories in adults with and without ASD. Results demonstrated that both groups were able to distinguish between…

The goal of this study was to investigate which working memory and long-term memory components predict vocabulary learning. We used a nonword learning paradigm in which 8- to 10-year-olds learned picture-nonword pairs. The nonwords varied in length (two vs. four syllables) and phonology (native sounding vs. including one Russian phoneme). Short,…

Converging evidence from humans and nonhuman primates is obliging us to abandon conventional models in favor of a radically different, distributed-network paradigm of cortical memory. Central to the new paradigm is the concept of memory network or cognit--that is, a memory or an item of knowledge defined by a pattern of connections between neuron…

A central claim shared by most recent models of short-term memory (STM) is that item knowledge is coded independently from order in long-term memory (LTM; e.g., the letter A is coded by the same representational unit whether it occurs at the start or end of a sequence). Serial order is computed by dynamically binding these item codes to a separate…

The availability of visual information influences the execution of goal-directed movements. This is very prominent in memory conditions, where a delay is introduced between stimulus presentation and execution of the movement. The corresponding effects could be due to a decay of the visual information or to different processing mechanisms used for…

Reactivation can destabilize previously consolidated memories, rendering them vulnerable to disruption and necessitating a process of reconsolidation in order for them to be maintained. This process of destabilization and reconsolidation has commonly been cited as a means by which established memories can be updated or modified. However, little…

Why does the brain contain more than one memory system? Genetic algorithms can play a role in elucidating this question. Here, model animals were constructed containing a dorsal striatal layer that controlled actions, and a ventral striatal layer that controlled a dopaminergic learning signal. Both layers could gain access to three modeled memory…

There is a popular hypothesis that performance on implicit and explicit memory tasks reflects 2 distinct memory systems. Explicit memory is said to store those experiences that can be consciously recollected, and implicit memory is said to store experiences and affect subsequent behavior but to be unavailable to conscious awareness. Although this…

We report here that ZIP, a selective inhibitor of the atypical protein kinase C isoform PKM[zeta], abolishes very long-term conditioned taste aversion (CTA) associations in the insular cortex of the behaving rat, at least 3 mo after encoding. The effect of ZIP is not replicated by a general serine/threonine protein kinase inhibitor that is…