When binding matters: An ERP analysis of the development of recollection and familiarity in childhood

Författare

Daniela Czernochowski
Michael Brinkmann
Axel Mecklinger
Mikael Johansson

Redaktör

Axel Mecklinger
Hubert Zimmer
Ulman Lindenberger

Summary, in English

Dual process models of recognition memory assume that memory retrieval can be based on two distinct processes: an assessment of a context-free feeling of familiarity or on the reinstatement of specific context attributes that have been bound together to form a representation of the study episode during encoding (recollection). Recent neurophysiological evidence suggests that familiarity and recollection are mediated by different medial temporal lobe circuitries and accomplished by different binding mechanisms. The assessment of familiarity has been associated with intra-item binding mechanisms of the perirhinal cortex, whereas the explicit retrieval of specific details of a study episode depends on inter-item binding mechanisms mediated by the hippocampal formation and the prefrontal cortex. A related line of evidence for the independence of these memory processes comes from the examination of patients with selective lesions: Vargha-Khadem et al. (1997) reported three cases of early bilateral hypoxic lesions restricted to the hippocampus. Although these patients were unable to acquire and to retrieve episodic information, they were unlike most adult amnesics clearly able to acquire semantic knowledge after their injury. We examined the developmental aspects of recollection and familiarity by means of an event-related potential (ERP) study in two groups of children (6–8 years, 10–12 years) and young adults (20–29 years). Topographical differences of ERP components between the age groups were found in the memory task, but not in an auditory discrimination (oddball) task, suggesting that ERP differences between groups can be ascribed to differential memory processes rather than to general age differences. Our findings support the view of a differential development of recollection and familiarity. We discuss these findings in the light of different memory strategies in children as indicated by a generally lower performance level and a more conservative response criterion.

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