APS

2026 APS Annual Convention

Studying Memory with Natural Language Processing

Friday, May 29, 2026 · Barcelona, Spain

Oral · Thinking & Remembering: Attention, Memory & Control

In this symposium, we discuss how natural language processing is being used to characterize and quantify features of memory retrieval. We illustrate this with examples from aging research, the study of spontaneous thoughts, and methods development work. Throughout, we highlight approaches such as topic modeling, text embeddings, and dictionary-based scoring.

Chairs & Discussants

  • Ruben Van GenugtenChair
    Northeastern University

Presentations

  1. Quantifying Schematic Content In Narratives with NLPRuben Van Genugten
  2. Mapping the Flow of Spontaneous Thought: NLP Insights into the Functions of Thought and Thought Dynamics In Mental HealthJudith Mildner
  3. Natural Language Markers of Aging In Autobiographical Memory NarrativesSigny Sheldon