Semantic relatedness retroactively boosts memory and promotes memory interdependence across episodes
- Center for Neuroscience, University of California, Davis, United States
- Department of Psychology and Child Development, California Polytechnic State University, United States
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, United States
Figures
Figure 1 with 1 supplement
Overview of conditions, stimuli, experiments, variables, and Osgood’s predictions.
(a) After base pair learning, pairs were divided into five experimental conditions for secondary pair learning. After a 5-min or 48-hr delay, both base and secondary pairs were tested. (b) Word …
Figure 1—figure supplement 1
Wider stimulus set examples and coverage.
(a) Sample stimuli from the wider stimulus set in all conditions. (b) Variable coverage. Points along the target identity (green) and cue identity (blue) lines show distributions of cue and target …
Figure 2 with 1 supplement
RF versus RI differed by overall stimulus set relatedness, delay, and word pair condition.
The narrower stimulus set (top row) featured only single-step semantic associations between base and secondary cues and targets, whereas the wider stimulus set (bottom row) featured a full range of …
Figure 2—figure supplement 1
Secondary pair memory changes depending on overall stimulus set relatedness, delay, and word pair condition.
All comparisons were significant except those labeled with gray bars and ‘ns’ (p>0.1) or † (0.05<p<0.1). Data points from individual subjects were jittered slightly for better visualization.
Figure 3 with 1 supplement
Target relatedness retroactively benefited memory and created interdependence between base and secondary pairs.
(a) Across-subject memorability for each base pair was plotted against the target semantic relatedness, with AS and GloVe values in the top and bottom rows, respectively. Relatedness improved memory …
Figure 3—figure supplement 1
Intrusions did not increase with target relatedness in the ΔTarget condition.
(a) Across-subject intrusion rates of secondary pairs into each base pair were plotted against target relatedness (Top: AS; bottom: GloVe). We found no positive relationships between intrusions and …
Figure 4 with 1 supplement
Cue semantic relatedness has no consistent retroactive effect.
Across-subject memorability for each base pair – control was plotted against cue relatedness (top: AS; bottom: GloVe). Relatedness had no effect on memory in any condition. See also Figure 4—figure …
Figure 4—figure supplement 1
Cue relatedness showed a mixed relationship with memory dependence in the ΔCue condition.
Within each base pair target-secondary pair target duo, we plotted across-subject memory dependence against relatedness in all experiments. Relatedness increased these correlations in the narrower …
Figure 5 with 1 supplement
High cue and target relatedness promoted long-term RF and increased interdependence.
(a) We plotted a smoothed surface of ΔBoth – control memorability values against cue and target relatedness on the x- and y-axes (top: AS; bottom: GloVe). Under the narrower stimulus set in the …
Figure 5—figure supplement 1
High cue+target relatedness promotes long-term RF and increases interdependence.
(a) We plotted across-subject memorability for each base pair – control against the added cue+target relatedness (top: AS; bottom: GloVe). Under the narrower stimulus set in the 48-hr delay …
Figure 6 with 3 supplements
Osgood-style surfaces depicting retroactive effects and dependence.
(a) We plotted all conditions (vs. control) from all experiments in three-dimensional coordinates, with cue and target relatedness on the y- and x-axes, respectively, and retroactive memory change …
Figure 6—figure supplement 1
Semantic relatedness benefits memory and dependence when combining data sets under a common GloVe metric.
(a) We plotted across-subject memorability (top) and dependence (bottom) for the ΔTarget (left), ΔCue (middle), and ΔBoth (right) conditions after combining the narrower and wider stimulus set, …
Figure 6—video 1
Rotations of Osgood-style retroactive memory surfaces from Figure 6.
Videos first rotate around the z-axis, followed by a rotation up to the ‘bird’s-eye’ view from above the surface (as in Figure 5) and back.
Figure 6—video 2
Rotations of Osgood-style memory dependence surfaces from Figure 6.
Videos first rotate around the z-axis, followed by a rotation up to the ‘bird’s-eye’ view from above the surface (as in Figure 5) and back.
Figure 7
Study-only learning led to semantic relatedness benefits in the ΔTarget condition but no base-secondary pair dependence.
(a) Overall memory performance for base (left) and secondary pairs (right) by condition. All comparisons were significant except those labeled with gray bars and ‘ns’ (p>0.1) or † (0.05<p<0.1). Data …
Figure 8
Secondary pair learning differed by stimulus set and condition and generally benefitted from semantic relatedness.
(a) Learning time (mean trials to criterion) followed this pattern for the narrower stimulus set: No Δ ‘ns’ (p>0.1) or † (0.05<p< 0.1). Data points from individual subjects were jittered slightly …
Figure 9
Proposed neurobiological schematic of long-term memory fates across conditions and two levels of semantic relatedness.
Initially, unrelated base pair associations are bound in the hippocampus along with base list (BL) contexts (e.g., ‘plaza-doze-base list’ and ‘beer-late-base list’; left column), followed by new …
Additional files
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Supplementary file 1
Cue-Δcue and target-Δtarget pairs and their relatedness factors for the narrower stimulus set.
AS: associative strength; MS: mediator strength; Spath: weighted shortest path; SpAct: spreading activation strength; GloVe: global vector cos(θ); w2v: word2vec cos(θ); LSA: latent semantic analysis cos(θ). Bold: relatedness factor of interest. Related to Figure 1.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/72519/elife-72519-supp1-v1.xlsx
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Supplementary file 2
Cue-Δcue and target-Δtarget pairs and their relatedness factors for wider stimulus set.
AS: associative strength; MS: mediator strength; Spath: weighted shortest path; SpAct: spreading activation strength; GloVe: global vector cos(θ); w2v: word2vec cos(θ); LSA: latent semantic analysis cos(θ). Bold: relatedness factor of interest. Note that AS and MS values of 0 reflect the absence of a one- or two-step semantic association, respectively. Related to Figure 1.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/72519/elife-72519-supp2-v1.xlsx
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Supplementary file 3
Overall base and secondary pair memory by condition.
Results shown for every experiment and condition with mean and SEM for base (top) and secondary pair (bottom) memory. Related to Figure 2 and Figure 2—figure supplement 1.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/72519/elife-72519-supp3-v1.xlsx
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Supplementary file 4
Correlations among the relatedness factors for the narrower stimulus set after concatenating cue-Δcue and target-Δtarget lists together.
AS: associative strength; MS: mediator strength; Spath: weighted shortest path; SpAct: spreading activation strength; GloVe: global vector cos(θ); w2v: word2vec cos(θ); LSA: latent semantic analysis cos(θ). Bold: significant relationships (P<0.05). These values are specific to this data set and will vary across data sets or for a full dictionary. Note that the perfect correlation between AS and Spath reflects the fact that Spath is simply (1 – ←AS) with all one-step associations. Related to Results section.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/72519/elife-72519-supp4-v1.xlsx
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Supplementary file 5
Correlations among the relatedness factors for the wider stimulus set after concatenating cue-Δcue and target-Δtarget lists together.
AS: associative strength; MS: mediator strength; Spath: weighted shortest path; SpAct: spreading activation strength; GloVe: global vector cos(θ); w2v: word2vec cos(θ); LSA: latent semantic analysis cos(θ). Bold: significant relationships (P<0.05). These values are specific to this data set and will vary across data sets or for a full dictionary. Related to Results section.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/72519/elife-72519-supp5-v1.xlsx
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Supplementary file 6
Correlations between various relatedness factors and base pair memorability (top) and base-secondary pair memory dependence (bottom).
For the ΔBoth condition, we used the added cue +target relatedness featured in Figure 5—figure supplement 1. Relationships within each column align with the corresponding measures for that condition (e.g., ← AS indicates target←Δtarget AS in the ΔTarget condition). AS: associative strength; MS: mediator strength; Spath: weighted shortest path; SpAct: spreading activation strength; GloVe: global vector cos(θ); w2v: word2vec cos(θ); LSA: latent semantic analysis cos(θ). Bold: significant relationships (P<0.05). Related to Results section.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/72519/elife-72519-supp6-v1.xlsx
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Supplementary file 7
Correlations between base pair memorability and base-secondary pair dependence for all experiments and conditions.
Bold: significant relationships (P<0.05). Related to Results section.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/72519/elife-72519-supp7-v1.xlsx
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Supplementary file 8
Correlations between various relatedness factors and base pair memorability while controlling for base-secondary pair dependence (top) and various relatedness factors and base-secondary pair memory dependence controlling for base pair memorability (bottom).
For the ΔBoth condition, we used the added cue +target relatedness featured in Figure 5—figure supplement 1. Relationships within each column align with the corresponding measures for that condition (e.g., ← AS indicates target←Δtarget AS in the ΔTarget condition). AS: associative strength; MS: mediator strength; Spath: weighted shortest path; SpAct: spreading activation strength; GloVe: global vector cos(θ); w2v: word2vec cos(θ); LSA: latent semantic analysis cos(θ). Bold: significant relationships (P<0.05). Related to Results section.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/72519/elife-72519-supp8-v1.xlsx
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Supplementary file 9
Correlations between base pair memorability and secondary pair learning efficiency (top) and partial correlations between base pair memorability and semantic relatedness controlling for secondary pair efficiency (bottom).
For partial correlations, we used backward AS for the narrower stimulus set and GloVe for the wider stimulus set. Bold: significant relationships (P<0.05). Related to Results section.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/72519/elife-72519-supp9-v1.xlsx
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Supplementary file 10
Correlations between base-secondary pair dependence and secondary pair learning efficiency (top) and partial correlations between base-secondary pair dependence and semantic relatedness controlling for secondary pair efficiency (bottom).
For partial correlations, we used backward AS for the narrower stimulus set and GloVe for the wider stimulus set. Bold: significant relationships (P<0.05). Related to Results section.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/72519/elife-72519-supp10-v1.xlsx
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Transparent reporting form
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/72519/elife-72519-transrepform1-v1.docx
