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Hippocampal and cortical coding of relational memory types

Poster Session A - Saturday, March 7, 2026, 3:00 – 5:00 pm PST, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballrooms

Weijia Cao¹ (weijia.cao@duke.edu), Paul Bogdan¹, Cortney Howard¹, Simon Davis², Roberto Cabeza¹; ¹Duke University, ²Indiana University Bloomington

Classic relational memory paradigms ask generally whether two items co-occurred (i.e., paired during encoding) or whether an item was bound to some context. However, in everyday decisions, people rarely need to only recall that two items appeared together. Rather, people often care about why they appeared together and what features of their relationship were goal-(or task-) relevant. Our research focuses on this issue. With fMRI data recorded, participants encoded pairs of object words while judging how similar the two objects were along one of four relational dimensions: color, sound, touch, or price. Participants later completed two memory tests: (i) an identical/recombined recognition task, where they were shown a pair of words and asked whether it had been presented previously, and (ii) a four-alternative-forced-choice task, where participants were asked to retrieve which relation type they used to compare the words during encoding. Univariate analyses found robust subsequent memory effects in both tests overall, with hippocampal activation showing greater sensitivity to retrieval accuracy of relation-type than generic pair recognition accuracy. Representational similarity analyses (RSA) showed that relation type is represented broadly across cortex, particularly within the Frontoparietal Control Network regions. Together, these results put forth a new perspective on relational memory that better aligns with how memory is used in other cognitive functions.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic