title: Novel concepts mediate word retrieval from human episodic associative memory: evidence from event-related potentials.
abstract: Effects of conceptual fusion on episodic associative retrieval were examined. Subjects attempted to fuse sequentially displayed (800 ms offset) word pairs; pairs subjects were unable to fuse were instead considered associated by juxtaposition. Next, dense-array event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while the pairs were redisplayed, half reversed in order. Subjects pressed a button to indicate whether each pair was presented in the previous order. Behavioral results showed that retrieval of fused pairs was faster and more accurate than for juxtaposed pairs. ERP topography to the first word of fused pairs was different from juxtaposed pairs, indicating that fusion can mediate associative retrieval of constituent items. Estimates of current source density at the cortical surface showed that fusion-mediated retrieval elicited left inferior-prefrontal/anterior-temporal activity not typically observed in episodic memory retrieval studies.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, University of Pennsylvania, 3401 Walnut Street, Suite 400A, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6228, USA. jkounios@psych.upenn.edu
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kounios
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bachman
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Casasanto
authors.forename: Murray
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Grossman
authors.forename: Roderick W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003210:Concept Formation / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D011897:Random Allocation; D011930:Reaction Time; D014936:Word Association Tests