Abstract
Neural activity elicited by an event can predict whether the event is successfully encoded into memory. Here we assessed whether memory encoding relies not only on neural activity that follows an event, but also on activity that precedes it. In two experiments we found that human brain activity elicited by a cue presented just before a word could predict whether the word would be recollected in a later memory test.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust and the National Institute of Mental Health (1R01MH074528).
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Supplementary information
Supplementary Fig. 1
Pre-stimulus subsequent memory effect in Experiment 1 at all measured electrode sites. (PDF 125 kb)
Supplementary Fig. 2
Pre-stimulus subsequent memory effect in Experiment 2 at all measured electrode sites. (PDF 84 kb)
Supplementary Fig. 3
Cue-locked ERP waveforms for the experimental condition unique to Experiment 1. (PDF 126 kb)
Supplementary Fig. 4
Cue-locked ERP waveforms for the experimental condition unique to Experiment 2. (PDF 85 kb)
Supplementary Fig. 5
Attention-related cueing effect in Experiment 2. (PDF 550 kb)
Supplementary Table 1
Recognition memory performance in Experiment 1. (PDF 48 kb)
Supplementary Table 2
Recognition memory performance in Experiment 2. (PDF 48 kb)
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Otten, L., Quayle, A., Akram, S. et al. Brain activity before an event predicts later recollection. Nat Neurosci 9, 489–491 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1663
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1663
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