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Sketchpad Series

Neural oscillations indicate cue combination in navigation

Poster Session F - Tuesday, April 1, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Yu Karen Du¹ (ydu366@uwo.ca), Jennifer E. Sutton², Blake E. Butler³; ¹University of Western Ontario

Previous studies suggest that when learning multiple spatial cues separately, humans are less likely to integrate the memories from each single cue to form a more precise representation. As the information from single cues is encoded separately, it is possible that retrieving all information takes more effort, which makes memory integration more difficult (retrieval efficiency hypothesis). It is also possible that combining information from multiple cues requires extra effort (combination efficiency hypothesis). To test whether the difficulty of achieving an integrated representation is due to less efficient retrieval or less efficient combination of multiple cues, participants in this study learned a target’s position by virtual navigation with two landmarks presented either together or sequentially. In testing, they replaced the target with single or two landmarks presented. Scalp EEG signals were recorded during learning and testing. Preliminary results suggest that the similarity between the observed frontal theta oscillatory activity during encoding and retrieval positively correlates with memory precision. This suggests that better reinstatement is related to memory integration, supporting the retrieval efficiency hypothesis. We also found that frontal theta oscillations are consistent with the predictions of the Bayesian Integration Model throughout the retrieval phase, while posterior alpha oscillations are consistent with predictions only in early retrieval phase. Furthermore, the similarity between observed oscillations and model predictions are not correlated with memory precision, which is inconsistent with the combination efficiency hypothesis. These results indicate that efficient retrieval contributes to spatial memory integration in navigation.

Topic Area: PERCEPTION & ACTION: Vision