Neural-Context Reinstatement of Recurring Events

Abstract

Episodic recollection involves retrieving context information bound to specific events. However, autobiographical memory largely comprises recurrent, similar experiences that become integrated into joint representations. In the current study, we used scalp electroencephalography (EEG) to extract a neural signature of temporal context and investigate whether recalling a recurring event accompanies the reinstatement of one or multiple occurrences. We asked 52 young adults (aged 18–30) from the Philadelphia area to study and recall lists of words that included both once-presented and repeated items. Participants recalled repeated items in association with neighboring list items from each occurrence, but with stronger clustering around the repetition’s initial occurrence. Furthermore, multivariate spectral analyses of EEG data recorded just prior to the recall of these words revealed stronger patterns of context reinstatement of the first occurrence than the second. Together, these results suggest that the initial occurrence of an event carries stronger temporal-context associations than later repetitions, as predicted by retrieved-context frameworks of episodic memory.