Summary: Learning new information about the world, such as details of a fantasy realm, engages different regions of the brain than those used to remember personal experiences. In a new study, participants learned fictional facts about imaginary civilizations and then were tested on what they remembered.
Brain scans revealed specific areas that encoded semantic information about people and places, and more intense activity predicted better memory. The results show that factual learning recruits its own neural network separate from autobiographical memory systems.
Key facts:
Different learning systems: the brain uses specialized regions to learn impersonal semantic information, different from that of personal memories. Predictive brain activity: Stronger activation in regions that encode people and places predicted which events participants later remembered. Fiction as a tool: Imaginary civilizations provided a unique way to study how the brain forms and retains new factual knowledge.
Source: SfN
While studies have linked areas of the brain to remembering personal experiences, the areas of the brain involved in learning more impersonal information about the world remain unclear.
In a new paper in the Journal of Neuroscience, Scott Fairhall and colleagues at the University of Trento used fMRI on 29 human volunteers while they performed a learning task to shed light on how the brain acquires semantic and impersonal information.
In the task, participants learned 120 fictional facts about three imaginary civilizations based on fantasy works, such as Game of Thrones. Almost two days later, the researchers assessed which facts people remembered better than others during a memory test.
The brain images showed activity in different regions that were sensitive to semantic information about places and people during learning.
The quality of activity in two of these regions, which represent the strength of information about places and people, could even predict whether people would remember the information during the memory task.
Fairhill says: “These findings suggest that the mechanism for learning new facts about the world is partially distinct from the previously well-characterized brain mechanisms for remembering things that happen in our lives, which depend on different structures.”
Key questions answered:
A: How the brain learns objective, impersonal information about the world instead of personal experiences.
A: Participants learned fictional facts about imaginary civilizations while undergoing brain imaging and then completed a memory test two days later.
A: Activity in certain brain regions linked to people and places predicted memory strength, revealing different mechanisms for factual learning.
About this research news on learning and memory.
Author: SfN Media
Source: SfN
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Original Research: Closed access.
“Strength of semantic representation in the precuneus and lateral ATL predicts successful factual learning” by Scott Fairhall et al. Neuroscience Magazine
Abstract
Semantic representation strength in the precuneus and lateral ATL predicts successful factual learning.
Learning new facts is essential for modern life. Although the cortical regions involved in this process have been identified, the neural substrates underlying successful knowledge acquisition remain elusive.
In this fMRI study, we presented human participants (N = 29; 7, male) with a naturalistic learning task in which 120 fictional encyclopedic facts related to people or places drawn from three imaginary civilizations were presented.
We then compared the items that were subsequently remembered with those that were forgotten on a memory test aimed at associative learning, administered on average a day and a half later.
To complement the univariate analysis, multivariate pattern analysis was used to identify regions sensitive to semantic content during encoding, identifying the medial precuneus, left angular gyrus (AG), intraparietal sulcus (IPS), ventral occipitotemporal cortex (VOTC), and lateral anterior temporal lobes (latATL) bilaterally.
Within these regions, the strength of informational content within the precuneus and left latATL predicted subsequent retrieval. In contrast, planned analyzes found no univariate differences between remembered and forgotten events.
Targeted pursuit ROI analysis indicated a possible role of response magnitude in the left inferior frontal gyrus and no univariate or multivariate effects within medial temporal lobe structures.
Taken together, these results support a model of fact learning driven predominantly by the richness of representations within semantic systems that is partially distinct from episodic learning mechanisms.
