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

Memory Consolidation sharpens fine-grained structural representations in auditory sequence learning

Xiaoyue Zhou¹, Neil Burgess¹, Maria Chait¹; ¹University College London

Presenter: Xiaoyue Zhou

Systems consolidation is hypothesized to stabilize and reorganize memory into generalized knowledge frameworks, but whether it promotes abstraction or sharpens fine-grained structure remains debated. Here we designed a sparse community network governing rapid tone sequences to probe this question. 29 participants were exposed to such sequences and completed a forced-choice task assessing structural knowledge across 2 sessions separated by a week. Our findings demonstrate that on Day 1, participants successfully learned the community structure, showing sensitivity to both connectivity and community membership. On Day 8, we observed selective improvement for irregular transitions - where connectivity violates community schema. These findings suggest that systems consolidation refines detailed structural representations rather than abstracting toward coarse communities-level schemas.

Topic Area: Memory, Learning & Knowledge Structures