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Retrieving conceptual details of distinct autobiographical memories enhances representational overlap within the anterior hippocampus

Poster Session E - Monday, March 9, 2026, 2:30 – 4:30 pm PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Sydney Lambert¹ (), Lauri Gurguryan², Signy Sheldon¹; ¹McGill University, ²University of California, Riverside

The hippocampus responds to changes in how memories, including autobiographical memories, are retrieved. Current models propose a functional distinction along the hippocampal long axis, such that the anterior hippocampus supports coarse and holistic representations and the posterior hippocampus supports fine-grained discriminative representations. Complementary research suggests that the anterior hippocampus also contributes to integrating and connecting information on a conceptual level. Together, these findings lead to the hypothesis that autobiographical memories retrieved conceptually will show greater representational similarity in the anterior hippocampus compared to memories retrieved with non-conceptual (e.g., perceptual) focus. To test this hypothesis, we applied representational similarity analysis (RSA) to an existing fMRI dataset in which participants retrieved 36 autobiographical memories under three conditions: focusing on conceptual details (n = 12), perceptual details (n = 12), or freely recalling the memory (baseline, n = 12). Compared to baseline, conceptually recalled memories showed greater similarity in the left anterior hippocampus (p = .039, d = 0.43) and right posterior hippocampus (p = .019, d = 0.49). This effect was not observed for perceptually recalled memories, suggesting distinct representational dynamics along the hippocampal axis depending on retrieval focus. These findings indicate that retrieval focus shapes representational overlap along the hippocampal axis, and that conceptual processing in particular increases shared representational structure across distinct autobiographical memories. Our results highlight specialization along the hippocampal long axis and indicate that conceptual processing may promote retrieval of similar broad knowledge networks, enabling personal meaning structures to extend across otherwise distinct memories.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic