The opportunity to choose enhances long-term episodic memory

Abstract

Episodic memory is typically studied under conditions that treat participants as passive agents. Here we sought to explore how actively engaging in ongoing naturalistic occurrences affects long-term episodic memory. Participants viewed 40 short movie clips that depicted a protagonist that conversed with the participants. In each clip, they were either offered the chance to (supposedly) determine the clip's continuation (active condition), or let the computer decide for them (passive condition). Participants returned either two days or one week after the experience to undergo a true/false memory test for the clips' details and a two-alternative recognition test for the choices made. Memory performance for both groups was superior for information and choices conveyed in the active vs. passive condition. These findings suggest that the sense of actively influencing the unfolding of events is beneficial to long-term memory of the experience at large, baring potential interventions in the fields of education and cognitive enhancement.

Locally distributed abstraction of temporal distance in human parietal cortex

“…These studies have mostly focused on neural similarities in the hippocampus (29, 36, 37), whereas here we revealed a TD representation primarily in the PM system. This discrepancy might be due to the fact that instead of using a passive paradigm (viewing movies or listening to narratives), we used an active paradigm (first-person perspective gameplay for encoding), which should have implicated a distinct system upon retrieval (38),(39) when the memories in question are akin to real-life autobiographical/episodic experiences. The consideration that a temporal order judgment task was used in which participants had to extract temporal distance for making a decision (40), and then the neural signals were assessed in relation to the actual temporal distances rather than to subjective estimation of temporal separation might have also engaged the PM memory system more heavily.…”

Real-Life Neuroscience: An Ecological Approach to Brain and Behavior Research

“…The question at hand is whether the degree of perceived control over the environment may affect memory properties associated with relevant experiences. There are now several lines of evidence supporting the notion that actively interacting with the environment can affect memory formation (Brandstatt & Voss, 2014; Carassa et al, 2002; Murty, DuBrow, & Davachi, 2015; Plancher et al, 2013; Rotem-Turchinski, Ramaty, & Mendelsohn, 2019). For instance, spatial memory in a virtual environment was found to be stronger when individuals performed active rather than passive exploration of the environment (Carassa et al, 2002).…”

“…This study is an example of memory amplification in the absence of external reinforcement—in this case, the opportunity to choose even in the absence of a correct answer. The working hypothesis was that by providing the opportunity to choose, individuals generated a feeling of control and ability to affect the environment, which served in turn to enhance memory performance (Rotem-Turchinski et al, 2019). From the aspect of brain activity, the improvement in memory performance was linked to interactions between striatum activation immediately before choice phases and hippocampal activity thereafter during successful memory encoding of presented items.…”

Volitional learning promotes theta phase coding in the human hippocampus

“…Electrophysiological studies in rodents show that active navigation enhances hippocampal theta oscillations (4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12), providing a temporal framework for stimulus-related neural codes. Here we show that active learning promotes a similar phase coding regime in humans, although in a lower frequency range (3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8). We analyzed intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) from epilepsy patients who studied images under either volitional or passive learning conditions.…”

“…active learning | intracranial EEG | theta oscillations | neural phase coding | hippocampus V olitionally controlled-or "active"-learning has become a crucial topic in education, psychology, and neuroscience (1,2). Behavioral studies show that memory benefits from voluntary action (3)(4)(5), putatively through a distinct modulation of attention, motivation, and cognitive control (2,6). While these functions depend on widespread frontoparietal networks (7), a critical role of the hippocampus in coordinating volitional learning has been demonstrated in both humans (8) and rodents (9) (for a review see ref.…”