Semantic relatedness retroactively boosts memory and promotes memory interdependence across episodes

Abstract

Two fundamental issues in memory research concern when later experiences strengthen or weaken initial memories and when the two memories become linked or remain independent. A promising candidate for explaining these issues is semantic relatedness. Here, across five paired associate learning experiments (N=1000), we systematically varied the semantic relatedness between initial and later cues, initial and later targets, or both. We found that learning retroactively benefited long-term memory performance for semantically related words (versus unshown control words), and these benefits increased as a function of relatedness. Critically, memory dependence between initial and later pairs also increased with relatedness, suggesting that pre-existing semantic relationships interdependence for memories formed across episodes. We also found that modest retroactive benefits, but not interdependencies, emerged when subjects learned via studying rather than practice testing. These findings demonstrate that semantic relatedness during new learning retroactively strengthens old associations while scaffolding new ones into well-fortified memory traces.

Conceptual Similarity Promotes Memory Generalization At the Cost of Detailed Recollection

“…A possible interpretation for the pattern of results in Experiments 2 and 3 is that semantic relationship between the new and old objects promote integration of the current episode into the previously learned representation of overlapping associations. Accordingly with ndings in literature, novel but related items bene t both from the previously formed integrated network (2) and prior semantic knowledge (13). This explains the increased performance for novel but related objects when they are linked with overlapping representations learned with the aid of prior knowledge, compared to when semantic knowledge is not activated during learning.…”

“…In our study, we focused on whether elements that shared a common concept drawing from semantic memory but that were not dependent on a learning scenario would also aid in generalization, as previous work revealed that pre-existing semantic links between a present and past experience can promote their interdependence [13].…”