College of Health
27 Better together? Examining the consolidation of memories sharing a common structure
Owen Benzley; Geneviève Albouy; Ainsley Temudo; and Bradley R. King
Faculty Mentor: Geneviève Albouy (Health, Kinesiology, and Recreation, University of Utah)
Background
Previous research indicates that declarative and procedural memory processes are not separate but share common networks and processes (Poldrack, 2004). Considering interactions between memory systems offers an interesting avenue to enhance memory consolidation (Mutanen, 2020), the process by which newly acquired memories are transformed into a more robust and long-lasting form (McGaugh, 2000). In this pilot study, we tested whether a common learning structure promoting higher-order associations between memories from different domains, can enhance the consolidation of newly created memories.
To do so, we developed a new serial reaction time task (SRTT) using pictures of objects to create visual cues to trigger motor responses, allowing us to investigate sequence learning in both the procedural and declarative memory domains. Notably, the task was designed such that there were – or not – associations between fingers and object categories. In the associated version of the task, each finger was associated to a specific object category, while there was no such finger-object association in the unassociated version of the task. This pilot study includes two groups of young, healthy adults that were assigned to either the associated (n=3) or unassociated (n=3) groups described above. All participants learned the motor and object sequences 4 hours apart on experimental day 1 and consolidation was assessed with an overnight retest on both tasks.
We hypothesized that participants in the associated group would show greater learning and consolidation (measured through performance speed and accuracy on the task), than participants in the unassociated group.
Methods
All six participants were healthy young adults aged between 18 and 35 years with no formal musical training and were all right-handed. We designed a new serial reaction time task (SRTT) using pictures to create visual cues to trigger motor responses (Figure 1B). This task allowed us to probe both motor and object sequence learning (and to therefore examine procedural and declarative memory processes using the same task). The motor sequence was a pattern of 8 key presses using the fingers of the left hand (excluding the thumb), where each finger was used twice (i.e., 41324312). The object sequence was a pattern of 8 images split into four categories, vehicles, fruits, animals, and tools (Figure 2). To establish an association between memories from the different domains, a specific finger was associated to a specific object category (associated group, Figure 1C). No such association was present in the unassociated group. Participants were invited for three experimental sessions spread over two consecutive days (Figure 1A). They lea