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A sensory signature that distinguishes true from false memories

Nature Neuroscience volume 7, pages 664–672 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

Human behavioral studies show that there is greater sensory/perceptual detail associated with true memories than false memories. We therefore hypothesized that true recognition of abstract shapes would elicit greater visual cortical activation than would false recognition. During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), participants studied exemplar shapes and later made recognition memory decisions (“old” or “new”) concerning studied exemplars (old shapes), nonstudied lures (related shapes) and new shapes. Within visual processing regions, direct contrasts between true recognition (“old” response to an old shape; old-hit) and false recognition (“old” response to a related shape; related-false alarm) revealed preferential true recognition–related activity in early visual processing regions (Brodmann area (BA)17, BA18). By comparison, both true and false recognition were associated with activity in early and late (BA19, BA37) visual processing regions, the late regions potentially supporting “old” responses, independent of accuracy. Further analyses suggested that the differential early visual processing activity reflected repetition priming, a type of implicit memory. Thus, the sensory signature that distinguishes true from false recognition may not be accessible to conscious awareness.

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Figure 1: Depiction of experimental protocol (see Methods for details).
Figure 2: Neural regions differentially associated with true recognition (old-hits > related-false alarms) and false recognition (related-false alarms > old-hits).
Figure 3: Ventral brain regions commonly (magenta) and differentially (red) associated with old-hits and old-misses.
Figure 4: Neural regions associated with both true recognition (old-hits > new-correct rejections) and false recognition (related-false alarms > new-correct rejections).
Figure 5: Hippocampal activity associated with true and false recognition.

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Acknowledgements

We thank L. Moo for helpful discussions and use of her BrainVoyager software. This work was supported by grants MH-NS60941 from the National Institute of Mental Health and AG08441 from the National Institute on Aging.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA

    Scott D Slotnick & Daniel L Schacter

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Correspondence to Scott D Slotnick.

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Slotnick, S., Schacter, D. A sensory signature that distinguishes true from false memories. Nat Neurosci 7, 664–672 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1252

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