Hippocampal activation during transitive inference in humans

Heckers, Stephan; Zalesak, Martin; Weiss, Anthony P.; Ditman, Tali; Titone, Debra

doi:10.1002/hipo.10189

Cited by 246 publications

(261 citation statements)

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“…The hippocampus was selectively activated when people identified the indirect associations between faces that were paired with the same house as compared with direct faceface associations. In another study, subjects were trained on the task which involves a hierarchical series of judgments (A > B, B > C, C > D, D > E) or a series of non-overlapping judgments (K > L, M > N, O > P, Q > R; Heckers, Zalezak, Weiss, Ditman, & Titone, 2004). The hippocampus was activated when subjects performed transitive judgments as compared to novel judgments between items taken from the non-overlapping pairs.…”

Section: Episodes Are Represented As Sequences Of Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative Cognition, Hippocampal Function, and Recollection

Eichenbaum¹

2006

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Section: Episodes Are Represented As Sequences Of Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative Cognition, Hippocampal Function, and Recollection

Eichenbaum¹

2006

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“…Inference has been studied with paradigms that allow for the conscious encoding and retrieval of episodes (Bunsey and Eichenbaum, 1996;Dusek and Eichenbaum, 1997;Heckers et al, 2004;Preston et al, 2004;Smith and Squire, 2005;Ellenbogen et al, 2007). Participants encode stimulus pairs that contain overlapping elements (A-B, B-C).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For A-C, A is the correct choice. A correct choice enabled by the flexible integration of A-B and B-C memories is considered true inference (Leo and Greene, 2008), which is thought to depend on the hippocampus (Bunsey and Eichenbaum, 1996;Dusek and Eichenbaum, 1997;Heckers et al, 2004;Preston et al, 2004;Smith and Squire, 2005;Ellenbogen et al, 2007) and hence on episodic (Tulving, 2002) or declarative (Cohen and Eichenbaum, 1993;Reber et al, 1996;Squire and Wixted, 2011) memory. However, a correct choice at test may also result from the learning of simple reward associations (A is always rewarded and C never) that relies on the dopaminergic reward system (Frank et al, 2003(Frank et al, , 2006Libben and Titone, 2008;Moses et al, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unconscious Relational Inference Recruits the Hippocampus

Reber¹,

Luechinger²,

Boesiger³

et al. 2012

J. Neurosci.

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Relational inference denotes the capacity to encode, flexibly retrieve, and integrate multiple memories to combine past experiences to update knowledge and improve decision-making in new situations. Although relational inference is thought to depend on the hippocampus and consciousness, we now show in young, healthy men that it may occur outside consciousness but still recruits the hippocampus. In temporally distinct and unique subliminal episodes, we presented word pairs that either overlapped ("winter-red", "red-computer") or not. Effects of unconscious relational inference emerged in reaction times recorded during unconscious encoding and in the outcome of decisions made 1 min later at test, when participants judged the semantic relatedness of two supraliminal words. These words were either episodically related through a common word ("winter-computer" related through "red") or unrelated. Hippocampal activity increased during the unconscious encoding of overlapping versus nonoverlapping word pairs and during the unconscious retrieval of episodically related versus unrelated words. Furthermore, hippocampal activity during unconscious encoding predicted the outcome of decisions made at test. Hence, unconscious inference may influence decision-making in new situations.

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“…In this study, we examine schema-based effects in the context of the transitive inference (TI) paradigm-an experimental scenario which provides a well-controlled setting in which to examine the influence of an associative schema (i.e., prior knowledge of the rank position of items in the hierarchy) on the learning of new information (i.e., relating to the rank position of novel items). To the best of our knowledge, however, the TI paradigm has not been employed with this purpose in mind, though it has been widely used across species to study the mechanisms that support inferential behavior and generalization, and in particular the specific contribution of the hippocampus (Bryant and Trabasso 1971; Chalmers 1977, 1992;Harris and McGonigle 1994;Rapp et al 1996;Dusek and Eichenbaum 1997;Delius and Siemann 1998;Greene et al 2001;Frank et al 2003Frank et al , 2005Heckers et al 2004;Titone et al 2004;Smith and Squire 2005;Moses and Ryan 2006;Moses et al 2010;Zeithamova et al 2012).In this three-phase study involving 30 participants, we used a version of the TI paradigm, which follows the lines of the original paradigm developed by Bryant and Trabasso (1971), and has been shown to ensure the development of robust transitivity performance across a group of participants, underpinned by relational knowledge of the hierarchy (see Materials and Methods) (Cohen and Eichenbaum 1993;Eichenbaum 2004;Smith and Squire 2005;. Our experimental design ( Fig.…”

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confidence: 99%

Schema-driven facilitation of new hierarchy learning in the transitive inference paradigm

Kumaran

2013

Learn. Mem.

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Prior knowledge, in the form of a mental schema or framework, is viewed to facilitate the learning of new information in a range of experimental and everyday scenarios. Despite rising interest in the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying schema-driven facilitation of new learning, few paradigms have been developed to examine this issue in humans. Here we develop a multiphase experimental scenario aimed at characterizing schema-based effects in the context of a paradigm that has been very widely used across species, the transitive inference task. We show that an associative schema, comprised of prior knowledge of the rank positions of familiar items in the hierarchy, has a marked effect on transitivity performance and the development of relational knowledge of the hierarchy that cannot be accounted for by more general changes in task strategy. Further, we show that participants are capable of deploying prior knowledge to successful effect under surprising conditions (i.e., when corrective feedback is totally absent), but only when the associative schema is robust. Finally, our results provide insights into the cognitive mechanisms underlying such schema-driven effects, and suggest that new hierarchy learning in the transitive inference task can occur through a contextual transfer mechanism that exploits the structure of associative experiences.Prior knowledge, in the form of a mental schema or framework of associative information, is thought to facilitate the learning of new information in a range of experimental and everyday scenarios (Bartlett 1932;Brandsford 1979;McClelland et al. 1995;Maguire et al. 1999;Tse et al. 2007;Kumaran et al. 2009;van Kesteren et al. 2010a van Kesteren et al. ,b, 2012Tse et al. 2011). In recent years, there has been increasing interest in specific neural mechanisms that underlie this process (Tse et al. 2007;Kumaran et al. 2009;van Kesteren et al. 2010a van Kesteren et al. ,b, 2012Tse et al. 2011). For example, an influential study in rodents found that the learning of new associations (i.e., a new flavor-place paired associate) was markedly enhanced in the presence of an associative schema consisting of previously acquired flavor -place associations, experienced in a similar context (i.e., the same event arena) (Tse et al. 2007). Strikingly, this speeded (i.e., one-trial) associative learning became rapidly hippocampal-independent, providing evidence for a schemadriven shift in the neural mechanisms underlying the learning of new information.Despite the surge of interest in the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying the facilitatory effects of an associative schema on new learning, there is a paucity of experimental paradigms specifically designed to address this question in humans. In this study, we examine schema-based effects in the context of the transitive inference (TI) paradigm-an experimental scenario which provides a well-controlled setting in which to examine the influence of an associative schema (i.e., prior knowledge of the rank position of items in the hiera...

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Hippocampal activation during transitive inference in humans

Cited by 246 publications

References 42 publications

Comparative Cognition, Hippocampal Function, and Recollection

Comparative Cognition, Hippocampal Function, and Recollection

Unconscious Relational Inference Recruits the Hippocampus

Schema-driven facilitation of new hierarchy learning in the transitive inference paradigm

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