Effects of Context Changes on Memory Reactivation

Şahcan Özdemir*, Yağmur Damla Şentürk, Nursima Ünver, Can Demircan, Christian N.L. Olivers, Tobias Egner, Eren Günseli*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

While the influence of context on long-term memory (LTM) is well documented, its effects on the interaction between working memory (WM) and LTM remain less understood. In this study, we explored these interactions using a delayed match-to-sample task, where participants (6 males, 16 females) encountered the same target object across six consecutive trials, facilitating the transition from WM to LTM. During half of these target repetitions, the background color changed. We measured the WM storage of the target using the contralateral delay activity in electroencephalography. Our results reveal that task-irrelevant context changes trigger the reactivation of long-term memories in WM. This reactivation may be attributed to content–context binding in WM and hippocampal pattern separation.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere2096232024
Pages (from-to)1-9
Number of pages9
JournalJournal of Neuroscience
Volume44
Issue number36
Early online date5 Aug 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 4 Sept 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2024 the authors.

Keywords

  • context
  • learning
  • long-term memory
  • memory reactivation
  • working memory

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