The cognitive neuroscience of true and false memories.
Of central relevance to the recovered/false memory debate is understanding the factors that cause us to believe that a mental experience is a memory of an actual past experience. According to the source monitoring framework (SMF), memories are attributions that we make about our mental experiences based on their subjective qualities, our prior knowledge and beliefs, our motives and goals, and the social context. From this perspective, we discuss cognitive behavioral studies using both objective (e.g., recognition, source memory) and subjective (e.g., ratings of memory characteristics) measures that provide much information about the encoding, revival and monitoring processes that yield both true and false memories. The chapter also considers how neuroimaging findings, especially from functional magnetic resonance imaging studies, are contributing to our understanding of the relation between memory and reality.
Nebr Symp Motiv. 2012;58:15-52. Johnson MK, Raye CL, Mitchell KJ, Ankudowich E. Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA. marcia.johnson@yale.edu
Event-related delta, theta, alpha, and gamma correlates to auditory oddball processing...
Full title: Event-related delta, theta, alpha, and gamma correlates to auditory oddball processing during Vipassana meditation.
Long-term Vipassana meditators sat in meditation vs. a control (instructed mind wandering) states for 25 min, EEG was recorded and condition order counterbalanced. For the last four min, a three-stimulus auditory oddball series was presented during both meditation and control periods through headphones and no task imposed. Time-frequency analysis demonstrated that meditation relative to the control condition evinced decreased evoked delta (2-4 Hz) power to distracter stimuli concomitantly with a greater event-related reduction of late (500-900 ms) alpha-1 (8-10 Hz) activity, which indexed altered dynamics of attentional engagement to distracters. Additionally, standard stimuli were associated with increased early event-related alpha phase synchrony (intertrial coherence) and evoked theta (4-8 Hz) phase synchrony, suggesting enhanced processing of the habituated standard background stimuli. Lastly, during meditation there was a greater differential early-evoked gamma power to the different stimulus classes. Correlation analysis indicated that this effect stemmed from a meditation state-related increase in early distracter-evoked gamma power and phase synchrony specific to longer-term expert practitioners. The findings suggest that Vipassana meditation evokes a brain state of enhanced perceptual clarity and decreased automated reactivity.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2012 May 29. Cahn BR, Delorme A, Polich J. Address correspondence to: B. Rael Cahn, M.D., Ph.D. University of California, Irvine Department of Psychiatry 101 The City Drive South, Rt 88 Rm 207 Orange, CA 92868 (714) 456-5770 rael.cahn@gmail.com.
