United We Fall: All-or-None Forgetting of Complex Episodic Events
(2020) In Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 149(2). p.230-248- Abstract
Do complex event representations fragment over time, or are they instead forgotten in an all-or-none manner? For example, if we met a friend in a café and they gave us a present, do we forget the constituent elements of this event (location, person, and object) independently, or would the whole event be forgotten? Research suggests that item-based memories are forgotten in a fragmented manner. However, we do not know how more complex episodic, event-based memories are forgotten. We assessed both retrieval accuracy and dependency-the statistical association between the retrieval successes of different elements from the same event-for complex events. Across 4 experiments, we show that retrieval dependency is found both immediately after... (More)
Do complex event representations fragment over time, or are they instead forgotten in an all-or-none manner? For example, if we met a friend in a café and they gave us a present, do we forget the constituent elements of this event (location, person, and object) independently, or would the whole event be forgotten? Research suggests that item-based memories are forgotten in a fragmented manner. However, we do not know how more complex episodic, event-based memories are forgotten. We assessed both retrieval accuracy and dependency-the statistical association between the retrieval successes of different elements from the same event-for complex events. Across 4 experiments, we show that retrieval dependency is found both immediately after learning and following a 12-hr and 1-week delay. Further, the amount of retrieval dependency after a delay is greater than that predicted by a model of independent forgetting. This dependency was only seen for coherent "closed-loops," where all pairwise associations between locations, people, and objects were encoded. When "open-loops" were learned, where only 2 out of the 3 possible associations were encoded, no dependency was seen immediately after learning or after a delay. Finally, we also provide evidence for higher retention rates for closed-loops than for open-loops. Therefore, closed-loops do not fragment as a function of forgetting and are retained for longer than are open-loops. Our findings suggest that coherent episodic events are not only retrieved, but also forgotten, in an all-or-none manner.
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- author
- Joensen, Bárður H. LU ; Gaskell, M. Gareth and Horner, Aidan J.
- publishing date
- 2020
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Episodic memory, Forgetting, Hippocampus, Statistical modeling
- in
- Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
- volume
- 149
- issue
- 2
- pages
- 19 pages
- publisher
- American Psychological Association (APA)
- external identifiers
-
- pmid:31305093
- scopus:85068891006
- ISSN
- 0096-3445
- DOI
- 10.1037/xge0000648
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- no
- additional info
- Publisher Copyright: © 2019 The Author(s).
- id
- a95fd1f0-170d-42d4-a5f0-6246449b7c14
- date added to LUP
- 2024-03-18 12:02:24
- date last changed
- 2024-04-01 08:20:36
@article{a95fd1f0-170d-42d4-a5f0-6246449b7c14,
abstract = {{<p>Do complex event representations fragment over time, or are they instead forgotten in an all-or-none manner? For example, if we met a friend in a café and they gave us a present, do we forget the constituent elements of this event (location, person, and object) independently, or would the whole event be forgotten? Research suggests that item-based memories are forgotten in a fragmented manner. However, we do not know how more complex episodic, event-based memories are forgotten. We assessed both retrieval accuracy and dependency-the statistical association between the retrieval successes of different elements from the same event-for complex events. Across 4 experiments, we show that retrieval dependency is found both immediately after learning and following a 12-hr and 1-week delay. Further, the amount of retrieval dependency after a delay is greater than that predicted by a model of independent forgetting. This dependency was only seen for coherent "closed-loops," where all pairwise associations between locations, people, and objects were encoded. When "open-loops" were learned, where only 2 out of the 3 possible associations were encoded, no dependency was seen immediately after learning or after a delay. Finally, we also provide evidence for higher retention rates for closed-loops than for open-loops. Therefore, closed-loops do not fragment as a function of forgetting and are retained for longer than are open-loops. Our findings suggest that coherent episodic events are not only retrieved, but also forgotten, in an all-or-none manner.</p>}},
author = {{Joensen, Bárður H. and Gaskell, M. Gareth and Horner, Aidan J.}},
issn = {{0096-3445}},
keywords = {{Episodic memory; Forgetting; Hippocampus; Statistical modeling}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{2}},
pages = {{230--248}},
publisher = {{American Psychological Association (APA)}},
series = {{Journal of Experimental Psychology: General}},
title = {{United We Fall: All-or-None Forgetting of Complex Episodic Events}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000648}},
doi = {{10.1037/xge0000648}},
volume = {{149}},
year = {{2020}},
}