Discussions of extended cognition have increasingly engaged with the empirical and methodological practices of cognitive science and psychology. One topic that has received increased attention from those interested in the extended mind is music cognition. A number of authors have argued that music not only shapes emotional and cognitive processes, but also that it extends those processes beyond the bodily envelope. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the case for extended music cognition. Two accounts are examined in detail: (...) Joel Krueger’s “musically extended emotional mind” and Tom Cochrane’s “expression and extended cognition.” Each account is evaluated using three “anti-extension” arguments. I argue that Krueger and Cochrane’s accounts offer important steps toward extended music cognition, but that each account remains underdeveloped in various ways. To supplement existing approaches, I propose a complementary extended computational approach to music cognition. The claim is that music cognition forms part of an extended system in virtue of involving computational processes that range across environmental and in-the-head elements. The paper concludes by showing how the ECMC deals with each of the three anti-extension challenges and responds to objections. (shrink)

Behavioral studies have demonstrated differences in the effect of constrained retrieval of semantic vs. non-semantic information on the encoding of foils. However, the impact of recognition on foils between semantic and non-semantic trials remains unclear. This study thus examines the roles of recognition—familiarity and recollection—in constrained retrieval for foils. We applied the event-related brain potentials data of new/old effects to elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying the “foil effect.” Participants encoded semantic and non-semantic tasks, were tested in a blocked memory task (...) with new words presented as foils, and performed a surprise recognition task involving foils and completely new words. Behavioral results showed better recognition performance regarding reaction times and accuracy by hit and correct reject for semantic vs. non-semantic trials in Phase 2. Conversely, inferior recognition performance in reaction times and accuracy by hit and correct reject was noted for semantic vs. non-semantic foils in Phase 3. ERP results showed more positive Frontal N400 for hit in non-semantic trials, more positive late positive component for correct rejects in semantic trials in Phase 2, and more positive LPC for hits in both semantic and non-semantic trials only in Phase 3. Through dual-processing theory, we prove that different task types in constrained retrieval depend on different retrieval processes. Particularly, familiarity may be applied more often in non-semantic trials, and recollection in semantic trials. The difference in processes between semantic and non-semantic trials during constrained retrieval affects incidental encoding of foils. (shrink)

Bastin et al. propose a dual-process model to understand memory deficits. However, results from state-trace analysis have suggested a single underlying variable in behavioral and neural data. We advocate the usage of unidimensional models that are supported by data and have been successful in understanding memory deficits and in linking to neural data.

Previous studies on the effects of emotional context on memory for centrally presented neutral items have obtained inconsistent results. And in most of those studies subjects were asked to either make a connection between the item and the context at study or retrieve both the item and the context. When no response for the contexts is required, how emotional contexts influence memory for neutral items is still unclear. Thus, the present study attempted to investigate the influences of four types of (...) emotional picture contexts on recognition memory of neutral words using both behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) measurements. During study, words were superimposed centrally onto emotional contexts, and subjects were asked to just remember the words. During test, both studied and new words were presented without the emotional contexts and subjects had to make “old/new” judgments for those words. The results revealed that, compared with the neutral context, the negative contexts and positive high-arousing context impaired recognition of words. ERP results at encoding demonstrated that, compared with items presented in the neutral context, items in the positive and negative high-arousing contexts elicited more positive ERPs, which probably reflects an automatic process of attention capturing of high-arousing context as well as a conscious and effortful process of overcoming the interference of high-arousing context. During retrieval, significant FN400 old/new effects occurred in conditions of the negative low-arousing, positive, and neutral contexts but not in the negative high-arousing condition. Significant LPC old/new effects occurred in all conditions of context. However, the LPC old/new effect in the negative high-arousing condition was smaller than that in the positive high-arousing and low-arousing conditions. These results suggest that emotional context might influence both the familiarity and recollection processes. (shrink)

Do dissociations imply independent systems? In the memory field, the view that there are independent implicit and explicit memory systems has been predominantly supported by dissociation evidence. Here, we argue that many of these dissociations do not necessarily imply distinct memory systems. We review recent work with a single-system computational model that extends signal-detection theory (SDT) to implicit memory. SDT has had a major influence on research in a variety of domains. The current work shows that it can be broadened (...) even further in its range of application. Indeed, the single-system model that we present does surprisingly well in accounting for some key dissociations that have been taken as evidence for independent implicit and explicit memory systems. (shrink)

We used pattern classifiers to extract features related to recognition memory retrieval from the temporal information in single-trial electroencephalography (EEG) data during attempted memory retrieval. Two-class classification was conducted on correctly remembered trials with accurate context (or source) judgments vs. correctly rejected trials. The average accuracy for datasets recorded in a single session was 61% while the average accuracy for datasets recorded in two separate sessions was 56%. To further understand the basis of the classifier’s performance, two other pattern classifiers (...) were trained on different pairs of behavioral conditions. The first of these was designed to use information related to remembering the item and the second to use information related to remembering the contextual information (or source) about the item. Mollison and Curran (2012) had earlier shown that subjects’ familiarity judgments contributed to improved memory of spatial contextual information but not of extrinsic associated color information. These behavioral results were similarly reflected in the event-related potential (ERP) known as the FN400 (an early frontal effect relating to familiarity) which revealed differences between correct and incorrect context memories in the spatial but not color conditions. In our analyses we show that a classifier designed to distinguish between correct and incorrect context memories, more strongly involves early activity (400–500 ms) over the frontal channels for the location distinctions, than for the extrinsic color associations. In contrast, the classifier designed to classify memory for the item (without memory for the context), had more frontal channel involvement for the color associated experiments than for the spatial experiments. Taken together these results argue that location may be bound more tightly with the item than an extrinsic color association. The multivariate classification approach also showed that trial-by-trial variation in EEG corresponding to these ERP components were predictive of subjects’ behavioral responses. Additionally, the multivariate classification approach enabled analysis of error conditions that did not have sufficient trials for standard ERP analyses. These results suggested that false alarms were primarily attributable to item memory (as opposed to memory of associated context), as commonly predicted, but with little previous corroborating EEG evidence. (shrink)

Our ability to rapidly distinguish new from already stored information is important for behavior and decision making, but the underlying processes remain unclear. Here, we tested the hypothesis that contextual cues lead to a preselection of information and, therefore, faster recognition. Specifically, on the basis of previous modeling work, we hypothesized that recognition time depends on the amount of relevant content stored in long-term memory, i.e., set size, and we explored possible age-related changes of this relationship in older humans. In (...) our paradigm, subjects learned by heart four different word lists written in different colors. On the day of testing, a color cue indicated with a probability of 50% that a subsequent word might be from the corresponding list or from a list of new words. The old/new status of the word had to be distinguished via button press. As a main finding, we can show in a sample of n = 49 subjects, including 26 younger and 23 older humans, that response times increased linearly and logarithmically as a function of set size in both age groups. Conversely, corrected hit rates decreased as a function of set size with no statistically significant differences between both age groups. As such, our findings provide empirical evidence that contextual information can lead to a preselection of relevant information stored in long-term memory to promote efficient recognition, possibly by cyclical top-down and bottom-up processing. (shrink)

A recent naturalistic epistemological account suggests that there are three nested basic forms of knowledge: procedural knowledge-how, conceptual knowledge-what, and propositional knowledge-that. These three knowledge-forms are grounded in cognitive neuroscience and are mapped to procedural, semantic, and episodic long-term memory respectively. This article investigates and integrates the neuroscientifically grounded account with knowledge-accounts from cognitive ethology and cognitive psychology. It is found that procedural and semantic memory, on a neuroscientific level of analysis, matches an ethological reliabilist account. This formation also matches (...) System 1 from dual process theory on a psychological level, whereas the addition of episodic memory, on the neuroscientific level of analysis, can account for System 2 on the psychological level. It is furthermore argued that semantic memory and the cognitive ability of categorization are linked to each other, and that they can be fruitfully modeled within a conceptual spaces framework. (shrink)

The remember/know procedure is the most widely used method to investigate recollection and familiarity. It uses trial-by-trial reports to determine how much recollection and familiarity contribute to different kinds of recognition. Few other methods provide information about individual memory judgements and no alternative allows such direct indications of recollection and familiarity influences. Here we review how the RK procedure has been and should be used to help resolve theoretical disagreements about the processing and neural bases of components of recognition memory. (...) Emphasis is placed on procedural weaknesses and a possible confound of recollection and familiarity with recognition memory strength. Recommendations are made about how to minimise these problems including using modified versions of the procedure. The proposals here are important for improving behavioural and lesion research, and vital for brain imaging work. (shrink)

Research on the effects of perceptual manipulations on recognition memory has suggested that recollection is selectively influenced by task-relevant information and familiarity can be considered perceptually specific. The present experiment tested divergent assumptions that perceptual features can influence conscious object recollection via verbal code despite being task-irrelevant and that perceptual features do not influence object familiarity if study is verbal-conceptual. At study, subjects named objects and their presentation colour; this was followed by an old/new object recognition test. Event-related potentials showed (...) that a study-test manipulation of colour impacted selectively on the ERP effect associated with recollection, while a size manipulation showed no effect. It is concluded that verbal predicates generated at study are potent episodic memory agents that modulate recollection even if the recovered feature information is task-irrelevant and commonly found perceptual match effects on familiarity critically depend on perceptual processing at study. (shrink)

Previous studies suggest a relationship between second-language learning and voice recognition processes, but the nature of such relation remains poorly understood. The present study investigates whether phoneme learning relates to voice recognition. A group of bilinguals that varied in their discrimination of a second-language phoneme contrast participated in this study. We assessed participants’ voice recognition skills in their native language at the behavioral and brain electrophysiological levels during a voice-avatar learning paradigm. Second-language phoneme discrimination positively correlated with behavioral and brain (...) measures of voice recognition. At the electrophysiological level, correlations were present at two time windows and are interpreted within the dual-process model of recognition memory. The results are relevant to understanding the processes involved in language learning as they show a common variability for second-language phoneme and voice recognition processes. (shrink)