Schedule of Events | Symposia

Conceptual Fluency Supports Retrieval of Labels Encoded Through Fast Mapping: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

Poster Session C - Sunday, March 30, 2025, 5:00 – 7:00 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Lisa Festag¹ (lisa.festag@uni-saarland.de), Ann-Kathrin Zaiser², Patric Meyer^2,3, Regine Bader¹; ¹Saarland University, Germany, ²SRH University Heidelberg, Germany, ³Heidelberg University, Germany

Previous research suggests that novel picture-label associations can be rapidly integrated into neocortical memory networks through an encoding paradigm called “Fast Mapping” (FM). In the FM paradigm, associations are incidentally encoded through an inference process: An unknown label is inferred as the name of an unknown picture presented alongside a known picture. Recent fMRI results revealed that memory success following an FM condition in which the known and the unknown picture shared many features was predicted by encoding activity in the perirhinal cortex, a structure involved in conceptual integration and familiarity-based recognition. In an event-related potential (ERP) experiment, we investigated the processes associated with retrieval of labels encoded through FM versus explicit encoding (EE). We hypothesized that FM encoding boosts conceptual integration and therefore familiarity for the labels, whereas retrieval following EE requires recollection. Picture-label associations were either encoded within a high-overlap FM task or a standard EE task, followed by an old/new recognition test on the labels. After correct “old” responses, the corresponding picture had to be selected from a forced-choice display. ERP old/new effects were assessed by contrasting hits to old labels followed by correct forced-choice judgements with correct rejections to new labels. We found no evidence that the recollection-related late parietal old/new effect differed between groups. However, a larger N400 old/new effect was observed in the FM compared to the EE group, indicating that FM encoding gave rise to larger familiarity signals in the former condition, presumably due to enhanced conceptual fluency of the newly learned labels.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Semantic