title: Learned interval time facilitates associate memory retrieval.
abstract: The extent to which time is represented in memory remains underinvestigated. We designed a time paired associate task (TPAT) in which participants implicitly learned cue-time-target associations between cue-target pairs and specific cue-target intervals. During subsequent memory testing, participants showed increased accuracy of identifying matching cue-target pairs if the time interval during testing matched the implicitly learned interval. A control experiment showed that participants had no explicit knowledge about the cue-time associations. We suggest that "elapsed time" can act as a temporal mnemonic associate that can facilitate retrieval of events associated in memory.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht 6200 MD, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: van de Ven
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht 6200 MD, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kochs
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht 6200 MD, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Fren
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Smulders
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht 6200 MD, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: De Weerd
mesh_terms: D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult