Schedule of Events | Symposia

Effects of Retrieval Demands and Cue/Trace Interactions on Pupil Dilation during Recognition Memory

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

Wen Jian¹ (wen_jian@brown.edu), Elena K. Festa¹, William C. Heindel¹; ¹Brown University

Pupil dilation reflects multiple cognitive processes that impact phasic arousal mediated by the locus coeruleus noradrenergic system. During tests of recognition memory, greater pupil dilation is elicited by “old” than “new” items, although the mechanism underlying this pupillary old/new effect remains elusive. To investigate how this effect is jointly influenced by retrieval demands and the match between cue and trace information, we assigned healthy young adults to two retrieval conditions adapted from the process dissociation procedure. During the study phase, all participants were asked to remember words and pictures presented sequentially. During the test phase, previously studied words, words corresponding to previously studied pictures, and novel words were presented intermixed. In the Word condition, participants (N=33) were told to respond “Old” only to the words that also appeared as words during study (“Match” items) and “New” to everything else. In the Picture condition, participants (N=33) were told to respond “Old” only to the words corresponding to previously studied pictures (“No-Match” items) and “New” to everything else. Single-trial regression showed similar pupillary old/new effects in both conditions. However, greater pupil dilation was observed for No-Match than Match items in the Picture condition, while there was no difference between No-Match and Match items in the Word condition. These results suggest that when the task emphasizes remembering pictures, pupil dilation reflects successful reconstruction of previously studied mental images. In contrast, when the task emphasizes remembering words, pupil dilation reflects the semantic processing of previously studied items regardless of perceptual match with retrieval cues.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic