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Color has been investigated as a signaling cue in multimedia learning environments, guiding the learner's attention and as an emotional design element, increasing the learner's motivation and, thus, improving learning outcomes. Retrieval cues (e.g., visual cues, odor, sound) facilitating memory retrieval have been primarily investigated in learning simple word lists. Contrary to additional retrieval cues, the background color is a component that is always present in multimedia learning environments. This study investigates if the background color of learning texts as retrieval cue can enhance learning and affect cognitive load and motivation. Hypotheses are formulated according to the Cognitive-Affective Theory of Learning with Multimedia (CATLM) and in the setting of context-dependent memory, specifically the Information, associated Context, and Ensemble Theory (ICE). A 2 (related vs. unrelated background color) × 2 (with vs. without colors in the learning test) -factorial between-subjects design with an additional control group was utilized. For the control group, the background of the learning texts and learning questions was white. In total, 191 native German speakers were randomly assigned to the five groups. The findings indicate that relying solely on the background color as a retrieval cue is insufficient. Instead of facilitating memory retrieval, the background color remains context information stored separately from the item information. However, the results should be approached carefully as learning outcomes may be subject to ceiling and floor effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a vast literature conceptualizing a memorable tourism experience, empirical studies overlook the context in which those experiences are produced and compiled into actions that benefit the environment. Accordingly, we need to better understand to what extent the experience of megafauna enclosures strengthens visitors' overall support for wildlife protection. To close this knowledge gap, we study memorable tourism experiences in the Bison enclosures within Poland to better understand the significance of the environmental context in which the experience induces support for protecting the species. To this end, the study employs both symmetric and asymmetric models to uncover the complexity of individual behavioural paths. The PLS-SEM results confirm the role of memorable experiences in the relationship between attitudinal and behavioural outcomes. In a complimentary manner, the fsQCA results reveal how environmental planners can analyze complex constellations of internal and external factors to elucidate the conditions that generate visitor support for wildlife protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explaining the foundation of cognitive abilities in the processing of information by neural systems has been in the beginnings of biophysics since McCulloch and Pitts pioneered work within the biophysics school of Chicago in the 1940s and the interdisciplinary cybernetists meetings in the 1950s, inseparable from the birth of computing and artificial intelligence. Since then, neural network models have traveled a long path, both in the biophysical and the computational disciplines. The biological, neurocomputational aspect reached its representational maturity with the Distributed Associative Memory models developed in the early 70 s. In this framework, the inclusion of signal-signal multiplication within neural network models was presented as a necessity to provide matrix associative memories with adaptive, context-sensitive associations, while greatly enhancing their computational capabilities. In this review, we show that several of the most successful neural network models use a form of multiplication of signals. We present several classical models that included such kind of multiplication and the computational reasons for the inclusion. We then turn to the different proposals about the possible biophysical implementation that underlies these computational capacities. We pinpoint the important ideas put forth by different theoretical models using a tensor product representation and show that these models endow memories with the context-dependent adaptive capabilities necessary to allow for evolutionary adaptation to changing and unpredictable environments. Finally, we show how the powerful abilities of contemporary computationally deep-learning models, inspired in neural networks, also depend on multiplications, and discuss some perspectives in view of the wide panorama unfolded. The computational relevance of multiplications calls for the development of new avenues of research that uncover the mechanisms our nervous system uses to achieve multiplication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recognition, context effects often manifest as higher hit and false-alarm rates to probes tested in an old context compared with probes tested in a new context; sometimes, this concordant effect is accompanied by a discrimination advantage. According to the cue-overload account of context effects (Rutherford, 2004), context acts like any other cue, and thus context effects should be larger with lighter context loads. Conversely, the Item, Associated Context, and Ensemble (ICE) account (Murnane et al., 1999) attributes context effects to two factors: subjects erroneously attributing context familiarity to the probe, and the formation of ensembles (mnemonic combinations of item and context). Context familiarity increases as exposure at study increases, and thus ICE predicts larger effects of context as context load increases. Relatedly, ICE predicts larger effects of context as context meaningfulness increases, as meaningful contexts are more likely to be bound to the target in an ensemble. In Experiments 1 and 2, rather than manipulate context load during the study phase, we relied on subjects' preexperimental context exposure to manipulate context load. Subjects studied words superimposed on photographs of their university campus or another university campus. At test, targets and distractors were evenly divided between study and novel contexts and between familiar and unfamiliar contexts. In Experiment 3, we manipulated context familiarity within the experimental session. Results supported ICE, suggesting that context does not act as a retrieval cue in recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis in Murre (2021) should have been done with a repeated measures ANOVA with an order effect as a between-subjects covariate. A reanalysis reinforces the conclusion that this study was not a successful replication of Godden & Baddeley (1975).

Context-dependent memory (CDM) is the effect whereby information is retrieved more accurately in the presence of the contextual information that was present during encoding than in the absence of that contextual information. Most previous CDM experiments have focused on spatial location, but contexts such as sights, smells, and sounds have also been shown to be effective mnemonic cues, although the research is more limited. In relation to auditory contexts, much of the previous research has focused on music and on adults. We were interested in determining whether auditory CDM effects could be found in a classroom setting in school-aged children using background noises. Across two experiments we found that the reinstatement of the auditory context improved memory performance for 2nd, 3rd, and 5th grade students. Sounds, not just musical pieces, are stored in memory and can be effective contextual mnemonic cues. Further, (auditory) CDM effects can be found in young children. Teachers should be aware of the influence of contextual auditory cues in the classroom setting, and how this information is stored along with the focus of the teaching lesson.

A replication of the experiment by Godden and Baddeley (Godden and Baddeley 1975 British Journal of Psychology 66, 325–331 (doi:10.1111/j.2044-8295.1975.tb01468.x)) on environmental context-dependent memory is described. Sixteen divers studied auditorily presented word lists on land or underwater and recalled these 4 min later on land or underwater (each diver participated in all four combinations). Contrary to the original study, we did not find that recall in the same context where the words had been learned was better than recall in the other context. We discuss differences between our replication and the original study and emphasize the importance of attempts at replicating classic studies.

Previous research has shown that changes in the scenarios in which something is learned and recalled, respectively, may result in a subpar performance in memory recollection. The current study aimed to evaluate how changes in the visuo-perceptual environmental learning context impact incidental vocabulary learning. To this end, a highly immersive virtual reality setting was created, and participants were required to read eight distinct stories visually presented to them. A novel word was delivered twice in every paragraph and embedded in each story. Stories could be displayed either in a high variability condition, where each paragraph was shown in a new environment context (four different classrooms) or in a low variability condition, where each paragraph was shown in the same context. The findings obtained across four assessment tasks (free recall, recognition, picture matching, and sentence completion) demonstrated that significant visuo-perceptual variability did not bring about any disadvantages in word learning. Thus, perceptual information from a physically diverse environment could provide a variety of instructional and educational beneficial possibilities in the absence of a learning disadvantage.

The spatiotemporal learning rule (STLR) proposed based on hippocampal neurophysiological experiments is essentially different from the Hebbian learning rule (HEBLR) in terms of the self-organization mechanism. The difference is the self-organization of information from the external world by firing (HEBLR) or not firing (STLR) output neurons. Here, we describe the differences of the self-organization mechanism between the two learning rules by simulating neural network models trained on relatively similar spatiotemporal context information. Comparing the weight distributions after training, the HEBLR shows a unimodal distribution near the training vector, whereas the STLR shows a multimodal distribution. We analyzed the shape of the weight distribution in response to temporal changes in contextual information and found that the HEBLR does not change the shape of the weight distribution for time-varying spatiotemporal contextual information, whereas the STLR is sensitive to slight differences in spatiotemporal contexts and produces a multimodal distribution. These results suggest a critical difference in the dynamic change of synaptic weight distributions between the HEBLR and STLR in contextual learning. They also capture the characteristics of the pattern completion in the HEBLR and the pattern discrimination in the STLR, which adequately explain the self-organization mechanism of contextual information learning.

The spatiotemporal learning rule (STLR) proposed based on hippocampal neurophysiological experiments is essentially different from the Hebbian learning rule (HEBLR) in terms of the self-organization mechanism. The difference is the self-organization of information from the external world by firing (HEBLR) or not firing (STLR) output neurons. Here, we describe the differences of the self-organization mechanism between the two learning rules by simulating neural network models trained on relatively similar spatiotemporal context information. Comparing the weight distributions after training, the HEBLR shows a unimodal distribution near the training vector, whereas the STLR shows a multimodal distribution. We analyzed the shape of the weight distribution in response to temporal changes in contextual information and found that the HEBLR does not change the shape of the weight distribution for time-varying spatiotemporal contextual information, whereas the STLR is sensitive to slight differences in spatiotemporal contexts and produces a multimodal distribution. These results suggest a critical difference in the dynamic change of synaptic weight distributions between the HEBLR and STLR in contextual learning. They also capture the characteristics of the pattern completion in the HEBLR and the pattern discrimination in the STLR, which adequately explain the self-organization mechanism of contextual information learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To examine influences of context changes between encoding and retrieval of motor sequences, we varied a number of encoding and retrieval features in a two lists approach. Participants consecutively learned two sets of three-finger movements at two different computer working places, all enacted with fingers of the right hand. We varied keyboard and display orientation, stimuli, background color, response keys, position of the hand, and the used PC between the two sets. A final free recall test comprised either the same context features as present during study of the first item set or the ones present during study of the second item set or novel test context features. Results showed significant differences in overall recall performance between test conditions, indicating that context features of study episodes guided retrieval of motor sequences. In addition, the number of recalled items varied as a function of output position. Test context elements comprising context features of the first item set study episode were associated with initially lower but subsequently nearby stable recall performance, whereas test features comprising context elements of the second item set study episode were associated with initially higher and subsequently decreasing recall performance. This implies that a context reinstatement for list-1 items during the test phase does not immediately enhance accessibility of those items. However, access is subsequently facilitated over the course of retrieval attempts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Odors can increase memory performance when presented as context during both encoding and retrieval phases. Since information from different sensory modalities is integrated into a unified conceptual knowledge, we hypothesize that the social information from body odors and faces would be integrated during encoding. The integration of such social information would enhance retrieval more so than when the encoding occurs in the context of common odors. To examine this hypothesis and to further explore the underlying neural correlates of this behavior, we have conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in which participants performed an encoding‐retrieval memory task for faces during the presentation of common odor, body odor or clean air. At the behavioral level, results show that participants were less biased and faster in recognizing faces when presented in concomitance with the body odor compared to the common odor. At the neural level, the encoding of faces in the body odor condition, compared to common odor and clean air conditions, showed greater activation in areas related to associative memory (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), odor perception and multisensory integration (orbitofrontal cortex). These results suggest that face and body odor information were integrated and as a result, participants were faster in recognizing previously presented material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our knowledge of social trust's drivers in the MENA region is limited and there are good reasons to expect that theories based on Western countries cannot be copied to the MENA one-to-one. Arguing for a broader and at the same time context-sensitive comparative approach, I translate the 'societal winners', social capital, and religious beliefs mechanisms explaining trust to the MENA context. Moreover, I acknowledge intraregional diversity and test how the impact of these factors also differs among MENA countries. Empirically, I synchronize 47 surveys from 15 MENA countries, which provides the broadest and most systematic assessment of trust in the MENA to date. The results show that the societal-winner mechanism does not hold: employed, higher education and wealthier citizens are not more trusting. However, higher-educated citizens dis trust other citizens more, particularly in the strongest autocracies. Religiosity seems pivotal too. Among others, service-attending citizens are more trusting, mainly where regimes regulate religious affairs. Overall, this study provides insight into what shapes generalized social trust in the Middle East and North Africa and it underscores that at a comparative level we need to consider inter-regional and intra-regional forms of context-dependency were we to formulate a broadly applicable theoretical framework of trust's drivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automated negotiation between artificial agents is essential to deploy Cognitive Computing and Internet of Things. In this sense, the behavior of those negotiation agents depend significantly on the influence of environmental variables, facts, and events, which made up the context of the negotiation game. This context affects not only a given agent preferences and strategies, but also those of his opponents. In spite of this, the existing literature on automated negotiation is scarce about how to properly account for the effect of the context in learning and evolving strategies. In this paper, a novel context-driven representation of the negotiation game is introduced. Also, a simple negotiation agent that queries available information from context variables, internally models them, and learns how to take advantage of this knowledge by playing against himself using reinforcement learning is proposed. Through a set of episodes of our context-aware agent against other negotiation agents in the existing literature, it is shown that it makes no sense to negotiate without taking relevant context variables into account. Our context-aware negotiation agent has been implemented in the GENIUS tool. Results obtained are significant and quite revealing about the role of self-play in learning to negotiate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates memorable messages about mental health that young adults (YAs) recall receiving from family members. A memorable messages conceptual framework is adopted to explore message types and their associations with relevant individual and relational outcomes. Findings from a study of 193 memorable messages about mental health revealed three types of messages about mental health transmitted by family members: strategizing, normalizing, and minimizing messages. Statistical analyses indicated that memorable message types were significantly related to YA satisfaction with the message, perceptions of relational closeness between the message source and the YA message recipient, and YA attitudes about mental-health help seeking. Overall, participants who reported minimizing messages about mental health also reported the least favorable outcomes on the set of dependent variables. Implications of these findings and future directions for research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During discrimination between two sequential vibrotactile stimulus patterns, the primate dorsal premotor cortex (DPC) neurons exhibit a complex repertoire of coding dynamics associated with the working memory, comparison, and decision components of this task. In addition, these neurons and neurons with no coding responses show complex strong fluctuations in their firing rate associated with the temporal sequence of task events. Here, to make sense of this temporal complexity, we extracted the temporal signals that were latent in the population. We found a strong link between the individual and population response, suggesting a common neural substrate. Notably, in contrast to coding dynamics, these time-dependent responses were unaffected during error trials. However, in a non-demanding task in which monkeys did not require discrimination for reward, these time-dependent signals were largely reduced and changed. These results suggest that temporal dynamics in DPC reflect the underlying cognitive processes of this task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • A unified framework and four models which integrate translation memory into PBMT for different scenarios. • We propose a unified framework for integrating translation memory into phrase-based statistical machine translation. • We implement a model (based on the unified framework) for adopting the TM database as the SMT training set. • We implement a model (based on the unified framework) for adopting a different SMT training set from the same domain. • We implement two models (based on the unified framework) for adopting a different cross-domain SMT training set scenario. Abstract Since statistical machine translation (SMT) and translation memory (TM) complement each other in TM matched and unmatched regions, a unified framework for integrating TM into phrase-based SMT is proposed in this paper. Unlike previous two-stage pipeline approaches, which directly merge TM results into the input sentences and subsequently let the SMT only translates those unmatched regions, the proposed framework refers to the corresponding TM information associated with each phrase at the SMT decoding. Under this unified framework, several integrated models are proposed to incorporate different types of information extracted from TM to guide the SMT decoding. We thus let SMT implicitly and indirectly utilize global context with a local dependency model. Furthermore, the SMT phrase table is dynamically enhanced with TM phrase pairs when the TM database and the SMT training set are different. On a Chinese–English TM database, our experiments show that the proposed Model-I significantly improves over both SMT and TM when the SMT training set is also adopted as the TM database and when the fuzzy match score is over 0.4 (overall 3.5 BLEU points improvement and 2.6 TER points reduction). In addition, the proposed Model-II is significantly better than the TM and the SMT systems when the SMT training set and the TM database are different. Furthermore, the proposed Model-III outperforms both the TM and the SMT systems even when the SMT training set and the TM database are from different domains. Additionally, the proposed Model-IV further achieves significant improvements with the help of Top-N TM sentence pairs. Lastly, all our models significantly outperform those state-of-the-art approaches under all test conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

False memories created by the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm are often accompanied by contextual information. Yet, research investigating the effects of context on false memories is surprisingly scarce. We used the context-dependent memory (CDM) model to construct same versus different context conditions using odours as contexts and DRM lists as to-be-remembered stimuli. Experiment 1 showed that levels of correct recall were higher in the same-context condition than in the changed-context condition, but no effects of context were observed in false recall. Experiment 2 used different odours and a longer retention interval and showed that context-dependent memory effects were found for both true and false memory. For true memory, context reinstatement improved memory, whilst simultaneously reducing false memory. Theoretical and forensic implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well established that random practice compared to blocked practice enhances motor learning. Additionally, while information in the environment may be incidental, learning is also enhanced when an individual performs a task within the same environmental context in which the task was originally practiced. This study aimed to disentangle the effects of practice schedule and incidental/environmental context on motor learning. Participants practiced three finger sequences under either a random or blocked practice schedule. Each sequence was associated with specific incidental context (i.e., color and location on the computer screen) during practice. The participants were tested under the conditions when the sequence-context associations remained the same or were changed from that of practice. When the sequence-context association was changed, the participants who practiced under blocked schedule demonstrated greater performance decrement than those who practiced under random schedule. The findings suggested that those participants who practiced under random schedule were more resistant to the change of environmental context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract To explore how contextual information streams are processed and prioritized during consumer studies, we manipulated the congruency of visual, auditory and olfactory cues using immersive technologies and assessed the impact on context recall, evaluation time, and preference and liking for cold brewed coffee. Each consumer (n = 50) was exposed to two identical control conditions, a visually incongruent condition, an auditory incongruent condition, an olfactory incongruent condition, and an all-incongruent condition. The control condition simulated a coffeehouse environment complete with the sights, sounds and smells commonly experienced in that venue. A laboratory setting, construction noise, and laundry detergent represented the individual incongruent visual, auditory, and aroma streams, respectively. Results revealed that olfactory information had a lesser priority than visual or auditory information in the simulated environments when assessed by subject's ability to recall encountered information streams. Panelists also spent more time evaluating coffees in the first presented control condition compared to the incongruent conditions or the repeated control condition. Finally, although the averaged combined liking score for subjects' least to most preferred coffees was significantly lowered in the all-incongruent condition compared to the control condition, this decrease was not substantial. Understanding how the saliency of contextual information influences consumer behavior and attention can inform immersive testing methodologies. Graphical abstract Unlabelled Image Highlights • Immersive technologies used to manipulate congruency of contextual information streams. • Visual stream was most salient followed by the auditory and olfactory streams. • Context content impacted panelist evaluation times of coffees. • When all contextual streams were incongruent, coffee liking decreased albeit only slightly. • Provides insights regarding contextual influences on consumer behavior and attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

False memories created by the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm are often accompanied by contextual information. Yet, research investigating the effects of context on false memories is surprisingly scarce. We used the context-dependent memory (CDM) model to construct same versus different context conditions using odours as contexts and DRM lists as to-be-remembered stimuli. Experiment 1 showed that levels of correct recall were higher in the same-context condition than in the changed-context condition, but no effects of context were observed in false recall. Experiment 2 used different odours and a longer retention interval and showed that context-dependent memory effects were found for both true and false memory. For true memory, context reinstatement improved memory, whilst simultaneously reducing false memory. Theoretical and forensic implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The use of reinforcement learning combined with neural networks provides a powerful framework for solving certain tasks in engineering and cognitive science. Previous research shows that neural networks have the power to automatically extract features and learn hierarchical decision rules. In this work, we investigate reinforcement learning methods for performing a context-dependent association task using two kinds of neural network models (using continuous firing rate neurons), as well as a neural circuit gating model. The task allows examination of the ability of different models to extract hierarchical decision rules and generalize beyond the examples presented to the models in the training phase. We find that the simple neural circuit gating model, trained using response-based regulation of Hebbian associations, performs almost at the same level as a reinforcement learning algorithm combined with neural networks trained with more sophisticated back-propagation of error methods. A potential explanation is that hierarchical reasoning is the key to performance and the specific learning method is less important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drugs of abuse trigger a very specific type of memory called state-dependent memory (SDM). Both memory process and drug addiction are underlain by neuroplasticity, which depends on calcium concentration and protein kinase activity. Within the scope of this study was to evaluate the impact of verapamil, an L-type voltage-gated calcium channel (VGCC) blocker, and SL-327, a selective MAPK/ERK kinase inhibitor, on morphine and ethanol SDM including the cross effects between these drugs with an additional influence of nicotine. To assess SDM in mice a step-through passive avoidance task was used. Our results show that amnestic effects of morphine (10.0 mg/kg, s.c.) and ethanol (1.0 g/kg, i.p.) can be reversed by pre-test administrations of morphine (10.0 mg/kg, s.c.), ethanol (1.0 g/kg, i.p.) and nicotine (0.1 mg/kg, s.c.), indicating morphine and ethanol SDM, as well as morphine-ethanol, morphine-nicotine, ethanol-morphine and ethanol-nicotine cross SDM. Pre-test co-treatment of verapamil (10.0 mg/kg, i.p.) with morphine/ethanol/nicotine increased all investigated SDM and cross SDM effects. Pre-test co-treatment of SL-327 (10.0 mg/kg, i.p.) diminished morphine- and ethanol-induced SDM along with the cross effects except ethanol-morphine cross SDM. In conclusion, SDM depends on ERK1/2 activation and also verapamil affects this type of memory, although the exact mechanism of its cognitive action has not been investigated in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing visual perceptual load can reduce pre-attentive auditory cortical activity to sounds, a reflection of the limited and shared attentional resources for sensory processing across modalities. Here, we demonstrate that modulating visual perceptual load can impact the early sensory encoding of speech sounds, and that the impact of visual load is highly dependent on the predictability of the incoming speech stream. Participants ( n  = 20, 9 females) performed a visual search task of high (target similar to distractors) and low (target dissimilar to distractors) perceptual load, while early auditory electrophysiological responses were recorded to native speech sounds. Speech sounds were presented either in a ‘repetitive context’, or a less predictable ‘variable context’. Independent of auditory stimulus context, pre-attentive auditory cortical activity was reduced during high visual load, relative to low visual load. We applied a data-driven machine learning approach to decode speech sounds from the early auditory electrophysiological responses. Decoding performance was found to be poorer under conditions of high (relative to low) visual load, when the incoming acoustic stream was predictable. When the auditory stimulus context was less predictable, decoding performance was substantially greater for the high (relative to low) visual load conditions. Our results provide support for shared attentional resources between visual and auditory modalities that substantially influence the early sensory encoding of speech signals in a context-dependent manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The self-concept consists of both a general (context-independent) self-representation and a set of context-dependent selves that represent personal attributes in particular contexts (e.g., as a student, as a daughter). To date, however, neuroimaging studies have focused on general self-representations, such that little is known about the neural correlates of context-dependent self-knowledge. The present study aimed at investigating this issue by examining the neural correlates of both kinds of self-knowledge. Participants judged the extent to which trait adjectives described their own personality or the personality of a close friend, either in a specific context (i.e., as a student) or in general. We found that both kinds of self-judgments were associated with common activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), as compared to judgments about others. Interestingly, however, there were also notable differences between self-judgments, with context-independent judgments being associated with higher activity in the MPFC, whereas context-dependent judgments were associated with greater activation in posterior brain regions (i.e., the posterior cingulate/retrosplenial cortex). These findings show that context-independent and context-dependent self-referential judgments recruit both common and distinct brain regions, thereby supporting the view that the self-concept is a multi-dimensional knowledge structure that includes a general self-representation and a set of context-specific selves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experience induces de novo protein synthesis in the brain and protein synthesis is required for long-term memory. It is important to define the critical temporal window of protein synthesis and identify newly synthesized proteins required for memory formation. Using a behavioral paradigm that temporally separates the contextual exposure from the association with fear, we found that protein synthesis during the transient window of context exposure is required for contextual memory formation. Among an array of putative activity-dependent translational neuronal targets tested, we identified one candidate, a schizophrenia-associated candidate mRNA, neurogranin (Ng, encoded by the Nrgn gene) responding to novel-context exposure. The Ng mRNA was recruited to the actively translatingmRNA pool upon novel-context exposure, and its protein levels were rapidly increased in the hippocampus. By specifically blocking activity-dependent translation of Ng using virus-mediated molecular perturbation, we show that experiencedependent translation of Ng in the hippocampus is required for contextual memory formation. We further interrogated the molecular mechanism underlying the experience-dependent translation of Ng, and found that fragile-X mental retardation protein (FMRP) interacts with the 3'UTR of the Nrgn mRNA and is required for activity-dependent translation of Ng in the synaptic compartment and contextual memory formation. Our results reveal that FMRPmediated, experience-dependent, rapid enhancement of Ng translation in the hippocampus during the memory acquisition enables durable context memory encoding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, we tested the level of aggression of monodomous and polydomous colonies of the wood ant Formica pratensis (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) with a behavioral assay in nature and laboratory conditions to see if the ants from neighboring colonies are more tolerant or more aggressive to each other than those from greater distances. We also tested how context (nature and laboratory conditions) affected aggression. Our results showed that the monodomous colonies were highly aggressive to all neighboring or nonneighboring conspecifics in nature irrespective of the spatial distance. The polydomous colony showed no aggression towards neighboring conspecifics but the level of aggression increased with increasing spatial distance between the colonies. The level of aggression of tested colonies in laboratory conditions was significantly low, irrespective of whether they were monodomous or polydomous, indicating that aggression is context dependent. A DNA barcoding technique based on mitochondrial COI gene sequencing was applied to determine the genetic relatedness between the colonies. The results of the genetic analysis, in combination with results of behavioral assays, revealed that aggression behavior of the polydomous colony was affected by both the genetic relatedness and the spatial distance between the colonies while there was no clear separation of effects of genetic relatedness and spatial distance on aggression in the monodomous colonies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experiments revealing ‘spontaneous’ visual perspective-taking are conventionally interpreted as demonstrating that adults have the capacity to track simple mental states in a fast and efficient manner (‘implicit mentalising’). A rival account suggests that these experiments can be explained by the general purpose mechanisms responsible for reflexive attentional orienting. Here, we report two experiments designed to distinguish between these competing accounts. In Experiment 1, we assessed whether reflexive attention orienting was sufficient to yield findings interpreted as spontaneous perspective-taking in the ‘avatar task’ when the protocol was adapted so that participants were unaware that they were taking part in a perspective-taking experiment. Results revealed no evidence for perspective-taking. In Experiment 2, we employed a Posner paradigm to investigate the attentional orienting properties of the avatar stimuli. This revealed cue-validity effects only for longer stimulus onset asynchronies, which indicates a voluntary rather than reflexive shift in spatial attention. Taken together, these findings suggest that attentional orienting does indeed contribute to performance in the Samson et al. avatar task. However, attention orienting appears to be voluntary rather than reflexive, indicating that the perspective-taking phenomenon measured may be less spontaneous than first reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study was to investigate the impact of individual costs on prospective memory performance. Individual costs were assessed by contrasting participants with high costs and those with low costs. Specifically, we tested whether prospective memory performance is moderated by costs, cue-focality and intention specificity. Participants performed a dichotic listening paradigm where they had to indicate whether a word presented to one ear was abstract or concrete while ignoring the word presented to the other ear. For the prospective memory task, participants had to detect target items; half of them were presented focally to the same ear as the relevant words for the ongoing task and half of them were presented non-focally to the other ear. Moreover, half of the participants were given specific instructions and the other half were given categorical instructions. The results revealed a right-ear advantage for participants with low costs but not for participants with high costs. Moreover, the absence of costs was not necessarily accompanied by worse prospective memory performance. Given differential results under the same task conditions, we conclude that individual costs are an important factor which should be considered when investigating prospective memory processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adaptive view of human memory assumes that animates (e.g, rabbit) are remembered better than inanimates (e.g. glass) because animates are ultimately more important for fitness than inanimates. Previous studies provided evidence for this view by showing that animates were recalled or recognized better than inanimates, but they did not assess memory for contextual details (e.g., where animates vs inanimates occurred). In this study, we tested recollection of spatial information (Study 1) and temporal information (Study 2) associated with animate versus inanimate words. The findings showed that the two types of contextual information were remembered better when they were related to animates than to inanimates. These findings provide further evidence for an ultimate explanation of animacy effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conditions during information encoding and retrieval are known to influence the sensory material stored and its recapitulation. However, little is known about such processes in olfaction. Here, we capitalized on the uniqueness of body odors (BOs) which, similar to fingerprints, allow for the identification of a specific person, by associating their presentation to a negative or a neutral emotional context. One hundred twenty-five receivers (68 F) were exposed to a male BO while watching either criminal or neutral videos (encoding phase) and were subsequently asked to recognize the target BO within either a congruent or an incongruent visual context (retrieval phase). The results showed that criminal videos were rated as more vivid, unpleasant, and arousing than neutral videos both at encoding and retrieval. Moreover, in terms of BO ratings, we found that odor intensity and arousal allow to distinguish the target from the foils when congruent criminal information is presented at encoding and retrieval. Finally, the accuracy performance was not significantly different from chance level for either condition. These findings provide insights on how olfactory memories are processed in emotional situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Context memory, a component of episodic system, refers to the ability to retrieve conditions under which an event has occurred, such as who was present during that event and where and when it occurred. Context memory has been found to be compromised in older adults, an issue that we investigated in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Methods: Thirty-one participants with AD and 35 older adults were asked to generate three autobiographical events. Afterward, they were asked to remember the names of all people who were evoked during the events, and the names for any location that was mentioned during the events. Participants were also asked to remember the year, season, month and day of the week when the events occurred. Results: Compared to older adults, participants with AD showed lower memory for "who" (p < .001), "where" (p < .05), and "when" (p < .01). Compared to "who" and "where", both participants with AD and older adults showed pronounced difficulties in remembering the "when". Conclusion: these findings highlight difficulties in remembering temporal information as an indication of context memory decline in AD. The difficulties in retrieving temporal information are discussed in terms of timing failures and hippocampal degenerations in AD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies showed that physical cleansing affects moral judgments and that even the activation of cleanliness-related cognitions is sufficient to produce such effects. We investigated whether hand cleansing (Study 1, n = 119) or a cleanliness visualization task (Study 2, n = 683) affect the self-assessed likelihood of committing morally good and bad actions in the future. We included participants’ gender and subjective vitality as covariates in the analyses. We found that hand cleansing reduced the likelihood of committing morally bad actions (Study 1), whereas in Study 2 the effect of the cleanliness treatment showed a significant but small interaction with participants’ involvement in the cleanliness treatment. The effects indicate a context-dependent tendency for behavioral consistency or moral licensing. Moreover, we found evidence for mediation processes in Study 1, but not in Study 2: The reported likelihood of committing morally bad actions in the future mediated the effect of the cleanliness treatment on one’s self-assessed moral character. Overall, the present results support a functional link between physical purity and moral behavior but also highlight specific functional constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Odours are often identified as effective cues to evoke autobiographical memories. The purpose of the present experiment was to examine if olfactory exposure during encoding and retrieval could be strategically used to facilitate recall of information relating to a crime. Ninety-seven undergraduate students volunteered to participate in a 2 (Encoding: vanilla odour vs. no odour) × 2 (Retrieval: vanilla odour vs. no odour) between-subjects design. Amount and accuracy of reported details from a news report concerning a rape case functioned as dependent variables. Analyses indicated no significant effects on the total amount of reported details as a function of odour exposure. However, the participants who smelled vanilla during memory retrieval achieved, independent of previous encoding context, significantly higher accuracy rates. Unexpectedly, utilizing a pleasant vanilla odour during the report phase thus appeared beneficial to enhance the accuracy of a testimony. Methodological limitations with the experimental paradigm and odour distribution techniques will be furthered discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Intelligent data handling techniques are beneficial for users; to store, process, analyze and access the vast amount of information produced by electronic and automated devices. The leading approach is to use recommender systems (RS) to extract relevant information from the vast amount of knowledge. However, early recommender systems emerged without the cognizance to contextualize information regarding users' recommendations. Considering the historical methodological limitations, Context-Aware Recommender Systems (CARS) are now deployed, which leverage contextual information in addition to the classical two-dimensional search processes, providing better-personalized user recommendations. This paper presents a review of recent developmental processes as a fountainhead for the research of a context-aware recommender system. This work contributes by taking an integrated approach to the complete CARS developmental process, unlike other review papers, which only address a specific aspect of the CARS process. First, an in-depth review is presented pertaining to the state-of-the-art and classified literature, considering the domain of the application models, filters, extraction and evaluation approaches. Second, viewpoints are presented relating to the extraction of literature with analysis on the merit and demerit of each, and the evolving processes between them. Finally, the outstanding challenges and opportunities for future research directions are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contextual odors can serve as retrieval cues when applied during encoding and recall/recognition of information. To investigate the neuronal basis of these observations, we collected functional MRI data while participants (n = 51) performed an encoding and recognition memory task during which odors (congruent: CO or incongruent: IO) were presented as contextual cues. Recognition performance was not influenced by odor, but there was increased activation in the piriform cortex during successful encoding in the CO group, possibly indicating enhanced retrieval of information previously integrated with an olfactory percept. Moreover, group-independent component analysis revealed a stronger task-modulation of subcortical networks for IO versus CO during the recognition task, pointing to differences in olfactory processing. These observations provide a deeper understanding of the involvement of functional neuronal networks in memory tasks and a basis for further evaluation of the impact of odor contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Implicit memory reflects itself on situations in which previously acquired information is expressed, without awareness or intention. The study of implicit memory has had a profound impact on how researchers have investigated the human memory. In this paper, we review the main studies which have revealed dissociations between direct and indirect tests of memory, and address the two main theoretical approaches used to explain these dissociations: the processing view and the multiple systems view. We then describe recent neuroscience studies and discuss its contributions to help clarify the debate about the mechanisms involved in explicit and implicit memory. Finally, we critically analyze some questions and controversies surrounding this literature, such as (a) the transparency assumption and the contamination issue; and (b) the theoretical utility of the dissociations. We emphasize that the biggest challenge for future research is to develop comprehensive theories that integrate behavioral and neuroscience findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of 'context' has played an important but complicated role in animal learning theory. Some studies have found that contextual stimuli (e.g., conditioning chamber) act much like punctate stimuli, entering into competition with other cues as would be predicted by standard associative learning theories. Other studies have found that contextual stimuli act more like 'occasion setters,' modulating the associative strength of punctate stimuli without themselves acquiring associative strength. Yet other studies have found that context is often largely ignored, resulting in transfer of performance across context changes. This article argues that these diverse functions of context arise in part from different causal interpretations of the environment. A Bayesian theory is presented that infers which causal interpretation best explains an animal's training history, and hence which function of context is appropriate. The theory coherently accounts for a number of disparate experimental results, and quantitatively predicts the results of a new experiment designed to directly test the theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study reexamined the mood-mediation hypothesis for explaining background-music-dependent effects in free recall. Experiments 1 and 2 respectively examined tempo- and tonality-dependent effects in free recall, which had been used as evidence for the mood-mediation hypothesis. In Experiments 1 and 2, undergraduates (n = 75 per experiment) incidentally learned a list of 20 unrelated words presented one by one at a rate of 5 s per word and then received a 30-s delayed oral free-recall test. Throughout the study and test sessions, a piece of music was played. At the time of test, one third of the participants received the same piece of music with the same tempo or tonality as at study, one third heard a different piece with the same tempo or tonality, and one third heard a different piece with a different tempo or tonality. Note that the condition of the same piece with a different tempo or tonality was excluded. Furthermore, the number of sampled pieces of background music was increased compared with previous studies. The results showed neither tempo- nor tonality-dependent effects, but only a background-music-dependent effect. Experiment 3 (n = 40) compared the effects of background music with a verbal association task and focal music (only listening to musical selections) on the participants’ moods. The results showed that both the music tempo and tonality influenced the corresponding mood dimensions (arousal and pleasantness). These results are taken as evidence against the mood-mediation hypothesis. Theoretical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]