Psychology Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2801
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Item INVESTIGATING THE RELATION BETWEEN PATTERN SEPARATION AND HIPPOCAMPAL SUBREGION ACTIVATION(2022) Dunstan, Jade; Riggins, Tracy; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Pattern separation is a key component of episodic memory as it allows us to distinguish between similar events that share overlapping features. Therefore, understanding the development of pattern separation processes can help elucidate individual differences in memory development. Research in children and adults has shown relations between hippocampal structure and pattern separation, indexed behaviorally through a mnemonic discrimination task where participants distinguished between similar stimuli. However, there has been less research investigating relations between hippocampal function and pattern separation processes, all in adult samples. Thus, the current study sought to pilot a child-friendly mnemonic discrimination fMRI paradigm in adults before recruiting a child sample. Results provided some evidence of pattern separation processes as greater differences in activation for Targets relative to Lures predicted better memory performance. Future studies will recruit a child sample to assess group differences in pattern separation processes as well as go beyond mean activation for the conditions by using techniques such as representational similarity analysis to assess patterns of representations for Targets, Lures, and Foils across the voxels of the hippocampus.Item Impact of Age and Experience on Pattern Separation(2017) Canada, Kelsey Leigh; Riggins, Tracy L; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The ability to remember highly detailed events and discriminate between them is thought to be supported by two distinct but complementary neural computational processes: pattern completion and pattern separation. The current study focused on the process of pattern separation, in which similar memories are assigned distinct representations, thus reducing the overlap between similar inputs. This process is measured behaviorally by tasking individuals with mnemonically discriminating between similar stimuli. The present study addressed the contribution of age and experience, which are difficult to distinguish during development, to pattern separation in adults and 9- to 11-year-old children, in whom this process and its supporting neural substrates are still developing. We examined differences in participant’s mnemonic discrimination of high-experience (e.g., own-race faces) and low-experience (e.g., other-race faces) stimuli. Results indicate better pattern separation overall in adults, and, that level of experience with a stimuli class may moderate age-related differences in pattern separation.