Schedule of Events | Symposia

Examining neural representations of perceptual and semantic false memories in younger adults.

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

Luke Dubec¹ (lxd5406@psu.edu), Rebecca L. Wagner¹, John T. West¹, Nancy A. Dennis¹; ¹The Pennsylvania State University

The aim of the current research was to examine common and distinct neural factors contributing to false memories across memory domains. To investigate this question, 30 younger adults underwent fMRI while completing perceptual and semantic memory tasks designed to induce false memories for related lures at retrieval. Specifically, retrieval stimuli were divided into items re-presented from the encoding phase (targets) and new items that were perceptually similar or semantically related to targets (lures). Based on previous work (Kurkela & Dennis, 2016), neural activity in frontal and parietal regions associated with domain-general cognitive processes was expected to influence false memory production, irrespective of memoranda. A univariate conjunction analysis of false alarms greater than hits was conducted to determine overlap of activity associated with false memories in both domains. Results were consistent with a prior meta-analysis from Kurkela & Dennis (2016) with common false memory activity observed in medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and inferior parietal cortex (IPC). Representational similarity analyses (RSAs) were conducted in these regions to examine if the neural patterns associated with perceptual and semantic false memories within these regions were also represented in a generalized manner. Results showed that despite similar increases in univariate activation, the mPFC and IPC display unique patterns of activity for false memories arising from each domain. These results expand our understanding of the neural representations of false memories and are a necessary step toward a more textured understanding of how false memories are produced and how they can be avoided.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic