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Poster E in Poster Session E: Thursday, August 6, 10:30 am – 12:15 pm, Kimmel Center, Shorin & Rosenthal Rooms

Interleaved Learning Blurs Both Direct and Indirect Associative Memory

Alex Gordienko¹, Anna C Schapiro¹; ¹University of Pennsylvania

Presenter: Alexander Gordienko

Memory theorists have debated to what extent and under what conditions memories of distinct experiences become integrated. Further, when integration does occur, theories differ as to whether this integration comes at the expense of fidelity of the memories for the individual experiences. Prior work has found that interleaved learning of object pairs (AB and BC) leads to integrated representations of distinct items (A and C) akin to those of a conventional neural network model exposed to information in interleaved order. Such a model would also predict a relatively low fidelity representation of the constituent individual memories relative to a model specialized for episodic encoding. Here we sought to replicate the prior finding and test whether constituent memories do show this blurring under conditions in which episodic retrieval is unlikely, using a paradigm where memory for perceptual details of the direct memories can be easily assessed. We found that interleaved learning indeed led to integrated representations, as measured by false alarms in recognition memory to indirectly associated item pairs (AC). We also found that interleaved learning led to impaired recognition of the details of the AB and BC direct associates. These findings support the idea that simple neural network models provide a useful account of certain kinds of memory formation under conditions of interleaved learning.

Topic Area: Memory, Learning & Knowledge Structures