Khader,P.H.
Pachur,T.
Weber,L.A.
Jost,K.

Decision-making often requires retrieval from memory. Drawing on the neural ACT-R theory [Anderson, J. R., Fincham, J. M., Qin, Y., & Stocco, A. A central circuit of the mind. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12, 136–143, 2008] and other neural models of memory, we delineated the neural signatures of two funda- mental retrieval aspects during decision-making: automatic and controlled activation of memory representations. To disentangle these processes, we combined a paradigm developed to examine neural correlates of selective and sequential memory retrieval in decision-making with a manipulation of associative fan (i.e., the decision options were associated with one, two, or three attri- butes). The results show that both the automatic activation of all attributes associated with a decision option and the controlled se- quential retrieval of specific attributes can be traced in material- specific brain areas. Moreover, the two facets of memory retrieval were associated with distinct activation patterns within the fronto- parietal network: The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was found to reflect increasing retrieval effort during both automatic and con- trolled activation of attributes. In contrast, the superior parietal cortex only responded to controlled retrieval, arguably reflecting the sequential updating of attribute information in workingmem- ory. This dissociation in activation pattern is consistentwith ACT-R and constitutes an important step toward a neural model of the retrieval dynamics involved inmemory-based decision-making.

Khader, P. H., Pachur, T., Weber, L. A. E., & Jost, K. (2016). Neural signatures of controlled and automatic retrieval processes in memory-based decision making. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 28, 69-83. doi:10.1162/jocn_a_00882 (Full text)

Publication year	2016
Document type:	Article
Publication status:	Published
External URL:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_00882 View
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