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FRIMED-Klinisk medisin og folkehelse

High- and low-level mechanisms of human memory

Awarded: NOK 2.1 mill.

The project represents a broad-scale approach to the study of human memory. Memory is studied in the laboratory and in everyday contexts, with experiments aiming at the various memory systems or formats of memory representation, and looking at how memory is embedded in emotional and social information processing. In several of the experiments to be carried out the procedures of experimental cognitive psychology are combined with brain imaging technology, recording event related scalp potentials (ERP) or B OLD responses with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), in the latter case collaborating with the University of Regensburg, Germany, and the Department of Radiology, Rikshospitalet. When it is important to distinguish cognitive processing compon ents within very short time windows, ERP is used, when it is important to identify local brain activations, fMRI is used. The project consists of three closely related sub-projects. Project I, mechanisms of perceptual memory, deals with the transfer of in formation from perception to memory, and analyses the relationship between the storage of simple visual attributes and complex naturalistic pictures. Project II, the structure of the mental architecture for person identification, deals with memory for fac es and persons, and models for person identification. Project III, development of memory, investigates the development of face recognition in children with special emphasis on the so-called own-race bias, and the relation between emotional processing and memory during development. This is principally basic research, aimed at answering theoretical questions, but particularly projects II-III have implications for understanding memory in everyday and forensic contexts.

Funding scheme:

FRIMED-Klinisk medisin og folkehelse

Thematic Areas and Topics

No thematic area or topic related to the project