Biology subjects

Tompary, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Tompary, A..

5 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

No evidence for sleep-dependent memory generalization in a large online sample

Memory generalization allows individuals to extract and apply information from prior experiences to novel situations, supporting flexible learning and efficient decision-making. Theoretical models suggest that sleep should facilitate generalization, yet the literature examining its role in promoting generalization is mixed. We recruited 137 participants via Prolific to complete an image-location memory task over two sessions spaced 12 hours apart. Participants were randomly assigned to the Wake group (learning in the morning) or the Sleep group (learning in the evening). In Session 1, participants learned the location of stimuli on the screen and were tested on their memory five minutes later. Twelve hours later, in Session 2, they were tested on their memory again. Stimuli consisted of 160 images from eight semantic categories and were strategically positioned on-screen to test the effects of generalization on retrieval (i.e., category-based memory distortions and biases). After the delay, retrieval was less accurate and demonstrated more generalization. However, these effects were mostly independent of Group, with some evidence for enhanced generalization following a period of wakefulness over sleep. Generalization was also driven by time of day, with more generalization in the evening relative to the morning. Taken together, our results, based on a large online sample, do not support a role for sleep in promoting memory generalization. Significance StatementBehavior is often guided by memories of previous experiences. However, for behavior to be adaptive and flexible (e.g., when encountering never-before-seen stimuli), regularities about the world must be extracted from these memories. This process, termed memory generalization, has been hypothesized to rely on sleep. We used a large online sample to test sleeps role in generalization and found no support for this hypothesis. Our results suggest that sleep and wakefulness contribute to generalization equally, with the latter potentially having a larger contribution.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2022

Consolidation-dependent behavioral integration of sequences related to mPFC neural overlap and hippocampal-cortical connectivity

Systems consolidation theories propose two mechanisms that enable the behavioral integration of related memories: coordinated reactivation between hippocampus and cortex, and the emergence of cortical traces that reflect overlap across memories. However, there is limited empirical evidence that links these mechanisms to the emergence of behavioral integration over time. In two experiments, participants implicitly encoded sequences of objects with overlapping structure. Assessment of behavioral integration showed that response times during a recognition task reflected behavioral priming between objects that never occurred together in time but belonged to overlapping sequences. This priming was consolidation-dependent and only emerged for sequences learned 24 hours prior to the test. Critically, behavioral integration was related to changes in neural pattern similarity in the medial prefrontal cortex and increases in post-learning rest connectivity between the posterior hippocampus and lateral occipital cortex. These findings suggest that memories with a shared predictive structure become behaviorally and neurally integrated through a consolidation-related restructuring of the learned sequences, providing insight into the relationship between different consolidation mechanisms that support behavioral integration.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2022

Disruption of anterior temporal lobe reduces distortions in memory from category knowledge

Memory retrieval does not provide a perfect recapitulation of past events, but instead an imperfect reconstruction of event-specific details and general knowledge. However, it remains unclear whether this reconstruction relies on mixtures of signals from different memory systems, including one supporting general knowledge. Here, we investigate whether the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) distorts new memories due to prior category knowledge. In this experiment (N=36), participants encoded and retrieved image-location associations. Most images locations were clustered according to their category, but some were in random locations. With this protocol, we previously demonstrated that randomly located images were retrieved closer to their category cluster relative to their encoded locations, suggesting an influence of category knowledge. We combined this procedure with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) delivered to the left ATL before retrieval. We separately examined event-specific details (error) and category knowledge (bias) to identify distinct signals attributable to different memory systems. We found that TMS to ATL attenuated bias in location memory, but only for atypical category members. The magnitude of error was not impacted, suggesting that a memorys fidelity can be decoupled from its distortion by category knowledge. This raises the intriguing possibility that retrieval is jointly supported by separable memory systems.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Tracking the relation between gist and item memory over the course of long term memory consolidation

Our experiences in the world support memories not only of specific episodes but also of the generalities (the gist) across related experiences. It remains unclear how these two types of memories evolve and influence one another over time. 173 human participants encoded spatial locations from a distribution and reported both item memory (specific locations) and gist memory (center for the locations) across one to two months. After one month, gist memory was preserved relative to item memory, despite a persistent positive correlation between them. Critically, item memories were biased towards the gist over time; however, with a spatial outlier item, the local center excluding the outlier became the source of bias, instead of the reported center overweighting the outlier. Our results suggest that the extraction of gist is sensitive to the regularities of items, and that the gist starts to guide item memories over longer durations as their relative strengths change.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2017

Attending to what and where: Background connectivity integrates categorical and spatial attention

Top-down attention prioritizes the processing of goal-relevant information throughout visual cortex, based on where that information is found in space and what it looks like. Whereas attentional goals often have both spatial and featural components, most research on the neural basis of attention has examined these components separately. This may reflect the fact that attention is typically studied in individual visual areas that preferentially code for either spatial locations or particular features. Here we investigated how these attentional components are integrated by examining the attentional modulation of functional connectivity between visual areas with different selectivity. Specifically, we used fMRI to measure temporal correlations between spatially-selective regions of early visual cortex and category-selective regions in ventral temporal cortex while participants performed a task that benefitted from both spatial and categorical attention. We found that categorical attention modulated the connectivity of category-selective areas, but only with retinotopic areas that coded for the spatially attended location. The reverse was not true, however, with spatial attention modulating the connectivity of retinotopic areas with category-selective areas coding for both attended and unattended features. This pattern of results suggests that attentional modulation of connectivity is dominated by spatial selection, which in turn gates featural biases. Combined with exploratory analyses of frontoparietal areas that track these changes in connectivity among visual areas, this study begins to shed light on how different components of attention are integrated in support of more complex behavioral goals.

neuroscience↗