Reactivation of neural patterns during memory reinstatement supports encoding specificity

AbstractEncoding specificity or transfer appropriate processing state that memory benefits when items are encoded and retrieved in the same modality compared to when encoding and retrieval is conducted in different modalities. In neural terms, these effects can be expressed by a resonance process between a memory cue and a stored engram; the more the two overlap the better memory performance. We here used temporal pattern analysis in MEG to tap into this resonance process. We predicted that reactivation of sensory patterns established during encoding has opposing effects depending on whether there is a match or mismatch between the memory cue and the encoding modality. To test this prediction items were presented either visually or aurally during encoding and in a recognition test to create match (e.g. “dog” presented aurally during encoding and recognition) and mismatch conditions (e.g. “dog” presented aurally during encoding and shown visually during recognition). Memory performance was better for items in the match compared to the mismatch condition. MEG results showed that memory benefitted from neural pattern reinstatement only in the match condition, but suffered from reinstatement in the mismatch condition. These behavioural and neural effects were asymmetric in that they were only obtained for aurally encoded words but not for visually encoded words. A simple computational model was generated in order to simulate these opposing effects of neural pattern reactivation on memory performance. We argue that these results suggest that reactivation of neural patterns established during encoding underlies encoding specificity or transfer appropriate processing.