Spontaneous revisitation during visual exploration as a link among strategic behavior, learning, and the hippocampus

Joel L Voss; David E Warren; Brian D Gonsalves; Kara D Federmeier; Dan Tranel; Neal J Cohen

doi:10.1073/pnas.1100225108

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Spontaneous revisitation during visual exploration as a link among strategic behavior, learning, and the hippocampus

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Spontaneous revisitation during visual exploration as a link among strategic behavior, learning, and the hippocampus

Joel L Voss, David E Warren, Brian D Gonsalves, Kara D Federmeier, Dan Tranel and Neal J Cohen

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, Vol.108(31), pp.E402-E409

PNAS Plus

08/02/2011

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1100225108

PMCID: PMC3150890

PMID: 21768385

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Abstract

Effective exploratory behaviors involve continuous updating of sensory sampling to optimize the efficacy of information gathering. Despite some work on this issue in animals, little information exists regarding the cognitive or neural mechanisms for this sort of behavioral optimization in humans. Here we examined a visual exploration phenomenon that occurred when human subjects studying an array of objects spontaneously looked “backward” in their scanning paths to view recently seen objects again. This “spontaneous revisitation” of recently viewed objects was associated with enhanced hippocampal activity and superior subsequent memory performance in healthy participants, but occurred only rarely in amnesic patients with severe damage to the hippocampus. These findings demonstrate the necessity of the hippocampus not just in the aspects of long-term memory with which it has been associated previously, but also in the short-term adaptive control of behavior. Functional neuroimaging showed hippocampal engagement occurring in conjunction with frontocerebellar circuits, thereby revealing some of the larger brain circuitry essential for the strategic deployment of information-seeking behaviors that optimize learning.

vicarious trial-and-error behavior

Biological Sciences

amnesia

PNAS Plus

prefrontal cortex

Details

Title: Subtitle: Spontaneous revisitation during visual exploration as a link among strategic behavior, learning, and the hippocampus
Creators: Joel L Voss - University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
David E Warren - University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine
Brian D Gonsalves - University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Kara D Federmeier - University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Dan Tranel - University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine
Neal J Cohen - University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, Vol.108(31), pp.E402-E409
Series: PNAS Plus
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1100225108
PMID: 21768385
PMCID: PMC3150890
NLM abbreviation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
ISSN: 0027-8424
eISSN: 1091-6490
Publisher: National Academy of Sciences
Language: English
Date published: 08/02/2011
Academic Unit: Neurology; Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
Record Identifier: 9984002404602771

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