Suppressing the Encoding of New Information in Memory: A Behavioral Study Derived from Principles of Hippocampal Function
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Cognitive processes do not occur in isolation. Interactions between cognitive processes can be observed as a cost in performance following a switch between tasks, a cost that is greatest when the cognitive requirements of the sequential tasks compete. Interestingly, the long-term mnemonic goals associated with specific cognitive tasks can also directly compete. For example, encoding the sequential order in which stimuli are presented in the commonly-utilised 2-Back working memory (WM) tasks is counter-productive to task performance, as this task requires the continual updating of the contents of one's current mental set. Performance of this task consistently results in reduced activity within the medial temporal lobe (MTL), and this response is believed to reflect the inhibitory mnemonic component of the task. Conversely, there are numerous cognitive paradigms in which participants are explicitly instructed to encode incoming information and performance of these tasks reliably increases MTL activity. Here, we explore the behavioural cost of sequentially performing two tasks with conflicting long-term mnemonic goals and contrasting neural profiles within the MTL. We hypothesised that performing the 2-Back WM prior to a hippocampal-dependent memory task would impair performance on the latter task. We found that participants who performed the 2-Back WM task, prior to the encoding of novel verbal/face-name stimuli, recollected significantly fewer of these stimuli, compared to those who had performed a 0-Back control task. Memory processes believed to be independent of the MTL were unaffected. Our results suggest that the inhibition of MTL-dependent mnemonic function persists beyond the cessation of the 2-Back WM task and can alter performance on entirely separate and subsequently performed memory tasks. Furthermore, they indicate that performance of such tasks may induce a temporarily-sustained, virtual lesion of the hippocampus, which could be used as a probe to explore cognitive processes in the absence of hippocampal involvement.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".