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Recognition memory and featural similarity between concepts: The pupil's point of view

Montefinese, M; Vinson, D; Ambrosini, E; (2018) Recognition memory and featural similarity between concepts: The pupil's point of view. Biological Psychology , 135 pp. 159-169. 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2018.04.004. Green open access

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Abstract

Differences in pupil dilation are observed for studied compared to new items in recognition memory. According to cognitive load theory, this effect reflects the greater cognitive demands of retrieving contextual information from study phase. Pupil dilation can also occur when new items conceptually related to old ones are erroneously recognized as old, but the aspects of similarity that modulate false memory and related pupil responses remain unclear. We investigated this issue by manipulating the degree of featural similarity between new (unstudied) and old (studied) concepts in an old/new recognition task. We found that new concepts with high similarity were mistakenly identified as old and had greater pupil dilation than those with low similarity, suggesting that pupil dilation reflects the strength of evidence on which recognition judgments are based and, importantly, greater locus coeruleus and prefrontal activity determined by the higher degree of retrieval monitoring involved in recognizing these items.

Type: Article
Title: Recognition memory and featural similarity between concepts: The pupil's point of view
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2018.04.004
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2018.04.004
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: pupil diameter; locus coeruleus-noradrenaline system; semantic similarity; recognition task; retrieval monitoring
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Experimental Psychology
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10046610
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