Dartmouth Events

Please join us on Friday, April 30, 2021, at 3:30 p.m., for a virtual colloquium given by Bruce Kuhl, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Oregon. Title/Abstract are below, and Zoom details will be provided at a later date.

Title: Adaptive Distortions of Memory Representations Protect Against Interference-Related Forgetting

Abstract:  When memories are highly similar, this creates the potential for interference and forgetting.  I will present evidence, from human behavioral and neuroimaging studies, that memories undergo adaptive distortions that protect against interference. First, I will describe evidence that similarity between memories actively triggers a ‘repulsion’ of patterns of activity in the hippocampus and that this repulsion of hippocampal activity patterns is closely related to the resolution of memory interference. I will then show that behavioral and cortical expressions of memory reveal selective, feature-specific memory distortions that are induced by similar memories and that are associated with reduced interference. Finally, I will discuss theoretical accounts of how, when, and why memory representations become distorted.