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La mémoire de reconnaissance nous permet à la fois de détecter rapidement un stimulus précédemment perçu (familiarité), et de récupérer des informations relatives au contexte de notre rencontre avec ce stimulus (recollection). Les modèles neuro-anatomiques d'Aggleton et Brown (1999) puis d'Aggleton et al. (2011) postulent que le noyau antérieur (NA) du thalamus et le tractus mamillo-thalamique (TMT) du fait de leurs connexions avec l'hippocampe font partie du circuit de la recollection tandis que le noyau dorso-médian (DM) participerait à la familiarité en raison de ses connexions avec le cortex périrhinal. Dans cette thèse nous avons testé cette hypothèse d'indépendance. 12 patients avec un infarctus thalamique gauche ont été recrutés ainsi qu'un groupe de sujets contrôles appariés. Tous les participants ont été soumis à un bilan neuropsychologique, à trois tâches expérimentales de mémoire de reconnaissance et à un examen d'IRM morphologique et d'IRM fonctionnelle de repos. Selon les tâches nous avons estimé la contribution de la recollection et de la familiarité à la réponse sur la base de la verbalisation de la source, du degré de confiance dans la réponse ou de la catégorisation des réponses. Les lésions thalamiques ont été quantifiées et localisées automatiquement grâce à une nouvelle approche méthodologique que nous avons développée. Le profil neuropsychologique des patients a mis en évidence une amnésie antérograde verbale et un trouble exécutif modéré (Etude 1). Les lésions atteignaient principalement le DM alors que le NA était intact chez tous. Le TMT était lésé chez les 7 patients les plus amnésiques (Etudes 1 et 2). La recollection était altérée chez les patients quelle que soit la tâche alors que la familiarité était préservée. De plus l'indice de recollection corrélait avec la lésion du DM (Etude 2). Enfin, des corrélations ont été trouvées dans l'étude en connectivité fonctionnelle entre la disconnexion thalamo-frontale et la recollection (Etude 3). En somme, ces résultats signifient i\ qu'une lésion du NA n'est pas nécessaire pour causer une amnésie ii\ qu'une lésion du DM est suffisante pour causer un défaut de recollection mais pas nécessaire pour atteindre la familiarité iii\ qu'une lésion du TMT prédit une amnésie sévère, enfin iv\ que le réseau reliant fonctionnellement le DM au cortex préfrontal semble être impliqué dans l'expérience subjective de la mémoire de reconnaissance plutôt que dans ses contenus. Ils suggèrent de plus que le modèle d'Aggleton et al (2011) devrait être révisé en ce qui concerne la relation familiarité / DM. / Recognition memory allows determining whether a stimulus has been previously encountered based on either a rapid detection process (familiarity) or a longer retrieval of the context associated with the stimulus (recollection). Aggleton and Brown's model (1999) and Aggleton and colleagues (2011) postulated that recollection and familiarity are anatomically and functionally independent. They hypothesized that the anterior nucleus (AN) / mamillothalamic tract (MTT) complex of the thalamus would be critical for recollection due to its connections with the hippocampus. The Mediodorsal (MD) nucleus would support familiarity owing to its links with the perirhinal cortex. In this thesis we tested this independence hypothesis. The 12 subjects with a pure left thalamic infarction were included along with a healthy matched control group. Every subject underwent a neuropsychological assessment, three experimental verbal recognition memory tasks, a high-resolution structural volumetric MRI scan and resting state functional imaging. Recollection and familiarity estimations were derived from subjective reports or responses categorization. We specifically developed the methods used to automatically analyse the volume and localization of the lesions. Patients performed worse than controls on verbal memory and to a lesser extent on executive tasks (Study 1). Most of the lesions were located in the MD while no lesion of the AN was found. The seven patients exhibiting MTT damage had the lowest memory performance (Studies 1 and 2). Recollection was lower in patients than in controls in all the three tasks whereas familiarity was systematically normal. In addition we found a significant correlation between the recollection index and the DM damage, suggesting that DM is directly involved in recollection (Article 2). Finally the functional connectivity results showed a correlation between recollection and a pattern of thalamofrontal disconnection in the patients, helping to understand the DM-recollection relationship. Overall, the findings of the different studies mean that i\ AN damage is rare and is not necessary to cause an amnesia, ii\ MD damage is sufficient to cause a recollection impairment but not necessary to impair familiarity, iii\ MTT damage predicts the severity of the amnesia, iv\ the network linking functionally the MD with the prefrontal cortex seems to be involved in the subjective experience associated with recognition memory.

This study was designed to evaluate the effect of concurrent notetaking and the quality of notes taken on the immediate recall of English lecture information by both native and non-native speakers of English. Additionally, the impact of short-term memory and familiarity with English on lecture information recall was also assessed. The subjects were 136 native speakers and 123 non-native speakers enrolled in Freshman English Composition classes at The University of Arizona. The Digit Span subtest of the WISC-R was administered to obtain a measure of short-term memory. Subjects were randomly assigned to a "listening only" or a "listening and notetaking" condition during a videotaped lecture presentation on the evolution of the Egyptian pyramid structure. Immediately following the lecture, the notes were collected to preclude review, and a 15-item multiple-choice test on lecture concepts and a 15-item multiple-choice test covering lecture details were administered. The data were subjected to multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAS). A stepwise multiple regression analysis was also performed to determine which index/indices of note quality predicted information recall for American and international notetakers. Results indicated that (1) notetakers and non-notetakers did equally well in recalling lecture concepts and details; (2) no significant differences in the test performance of subjects who took "no notes," "low quality notes," "medium quality notes," or "high quality notes" were found; (3) subjects with high short-term memory ability recalled more concept and detail information than subjects with low short-term memory ability; and (4) native speakers of English recalled significantly more of the concepts and details presented in the lecture than non-native speakers. The regression analysis indicated that 4 of the 5 indices of note quality predicted recall performance, but the indices varied according to the kind of information tested and the subjects's ethno-cultural background. Implications concerning the nature of the findings and recommendations for future research were proposed.

We examined the neural and cognitive processes engaged during auditory verbal recognition performance under full attention (FA) and divided attention (DA) conditions in younger and older adults. Recognition was disrupted by a word (DA-word), but not digit-based (DA-digit) distracting task, performed concurrently with retrieval. In Study 1, a multivariate functional magnetic resonance imaging analysis technique, Partial Least Squares (PLS) was used to identify distributed patterns of brain activity most related to the different conditions and behaviours. We found that similar retrieval networks were recruited during the FA and DA-digit, but not DA-word, condition in both age groups, mirroring behavioural performance. There was, however, an age-related change in the brain regions that predicted successful memory performance. In addition, we found that a neural network relating to hippocampal activity predicted memory success during the FA and DA-digit, but not DA-word, condition in younger, but not older, adults. In study 2, we used a Remember-Know paradigm to examine how manipulations of DA affect recollective and familiarity-based retrieval processes. Younger and older adults showed an increase in false Remember responses during both DA conditions and decreased accuracy in Know responses only during the word-based DA condition. In addition, aging was associated with decreased accuracy in Remember, but not Know, responses, in both DA conditions. In a follow-up experiment, we showed that these results cannot be accounted for by differences in difficulty level of the chosen distracting tasks. Results suggest that recollective processes rely on attentional resources during retrieval. Together these studies show that declines in available attentional resources, common with advancing age, affect both the neural networks used during retrieval, and the qualitative nature of the memories that are retrieved. Results also suggest that familiarity processes rely on the reactivation of content-specific representations, mediated by a neural network relating to hippocampal activity in younger, but not older, adults.

This experiment was designed to investigate the effect of emotion on an individual's ability to bind actors and actions in memories for events. Binding is the process of creating associations among features of a stimulus in order to represent that they belong together; however, errors can occur when a feature from one stimulus is incorrectly associated with a feature from another stimulus. Participants viewed a series of video clips, each depicting an actor performing a simple emotional or non-emotional action. One week later, they viewed a series of retrieval video clips consisting of old, (previously seen), conjunction (previously seen action performed by a different actor) and also new video clips. Participants responded "yes" to viewing the old clips the most, followed by both conjunction clips, and then new clips. Participants also responded "yes" more often to emotional items and also displayed higher confidence ratings to "yes" responses for emotional items. / by Leslie A. Butler. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

The Meno has traditionally been viewed as "one of Plato's earliest and most noteworthy forays into epistemology." In this dialogue, and in the course of a discussion between Socrates and his young interlocutor, Meno, about the nature of virtue and whether it can be taught, “Meno raises an epistemological question unprecedented in the Socratic dialogues.” This question - or rather, dilemma - has come to be known in the philosophical literature as Meno’s Paradox of Inquiry, due its apparently containing an easy-to-detect equivocation of the word ‘know’. Immediately after the paradox, and in an apparent response to it, Socrates recounts a myth: a story told by priests and priestesses about the pre-natal existence and immortality of the soul. From this this myth, Socrates concocts the infamous theory of recollection – a theory according to which the soul has acquired knowledge of everything before it was born, while in a disincarnate state. According to the traditional reading of Meno’s paradox, this theory constitutes Plato’s response to it. The traditional reading has come under fire in recent years by advocates of the epistemological reading (ERM), who argue that the theory of recollection is not Plato’s intended response to the paradox. Instead, they suggest, Plato’s distinction between true belief and knowledge – which appears towards the end of the dialogue – is sufficient for solving the paradox; and as such, it ought to be read as Plato’s response to it. In this thesis, I argue against ERM’s claim that a mere epistemological distinction is all it takes to solve the paradox. To do so, I explore the metaphysics of change in Plato’s ontology. From this, I appeal to our everyday notion of ‘memory’ in order to show that Meno’s paradox, in fact, contains a hidden-premise, which when laid bare, reveals two distinct challenges contained within the argument: a superficial one, and a deeper one. I argue that although it appears at first blush as though the former could easily be dismissed as an equivocation, to which the epistemological distinction between belief and knowledge could provide an answer, the latter cannot. This is because the deeper challenge threatens the very preconditions of knowledge itself – that is to say, it renders cognition impossible – and, as such, it cancels out any effort to provide an epistemological response to the superficial challenge. Hence, unless the deeper-level challenge is satisfactorily disarmed, both challenges remain unanswered. I argue that although the major motivation for the theory of recollection in the Meno is indeed to provide an answer to scepticism about knowledge, nevertheless, it ought to be understood, first, as a theory of cognition – i.e. as a theory about the preconditions and atomic building blocks of knowledge – and not a theory of knowledge per se. This answer comes in the form of a radical theory of the mind and cognition – one that stands in stark opposition to our common-sense views about the mind: a view from which, Plato believed, the paradox arises. Drawing on recent debates between Nativists and Empiricists in the Cognitive Sciences, I argue that it was a great achievement of Plato’s to grasp that our common-sense view about the mind, and its concomitant process of learning, language acquisition and knowledge acquisition, might in fact be at the very root of scepticism about our ability to engage in meaningful philosophical practice, and our ability to acquire objective knowledge – especially, objective moral knowledge. The Meno’s paradox, then – so I contend - is not a puzzle whose solution rests upon merely pointing to an epistemological distinction between true belief and knowledge, as advocates of ERM have suggested. Rather, it is a puzzle about cognition. More precisely, it is a puzzle that targets the rudimentary cognitive stages of initial cognition and truth-recognition - one whose solution entails offering an account of the mind that would make these elementary cognitive processes possible. Accordingly, Plato’s theory of recollection in the Meno ought to be read as an attempt to map the structure of the mind, and as such, to provide an account of cognition. In doing so, he intended to put forward a view about the preconditions of knowledge – the sort of preconditions without which language acquisition and knowledge acquisition would simply not be possible. With this theory, Plato has the beginnings of an argument against the kind of relativism and scepticism prevalent at his time. As such, a correct interpretation of the so-called paradox of inquiry (and Plato’s proposed solution to it via the theory of recollection) should approach it as a puzzle about mind and cognition – and not solely as an epistemological one, as it has previously been treated.

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Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 61-67)

The goal of this thesis is ultimately to answer the two questions raised and left unresolved in Plato’s Protagoras: What is virtue? Is virtue teachable? Following the dramatic order of Plato’s dialogues as outlined by Catherine Zuckert, I intend to show that the Meno returns to the issues raised and left unresolved in the Protagoras, but now with the idea of recollection. My intention is to look at how the idea of recollection, developed and associated with eros in the intervening dialogues, can help explain the nature of virtue and its teachability. I believe that we can come to answer both questions, “What is virtue?” and “Is virtue teachable?” posed in the Protagoras and the Meno by drawing on the ideas of anamnesis and eros as they appear in the Meno, Phaedrus, and Symposium.