Topic: human memory

I will present my recent work on mathematical modeling of human memory. I will argue that memory recall of random lists of items is governed by the universal algorithm resulting in the analytical relation between the number of items in memory and the number of items that can be successfully recalled. The retention of items in memory on the other hand is not universal and differs for different types of items being remembered, in particular retention curves for words and sketches is different even when sketches are made to only carry information about an object being drawn. I will discuss the pu

The ability to remember spatial environments is critical for everyday life. In this talk, I will discuss my lab’s findings on how the human brain supports spatial memory and navigation based on our experiments with direct brain recordings from neurosurgical patients performing virtual-reality spatial memory tasks. I will show that humans have a network of neurons that represent where we are located and trying to go. This network includes some cell types that are similar to those seen in animals, such as place and grid cells, as well as others that have not been seen before in animals, such as

Cognitive maps have been proposed as an essential relational structure for human memory and thought (Tolman, 1948; Constantinescu et al., 2016). In this format, remembered entities are embedded in space and their relationships are encoded via concrete angles and Euclidean distances. Although much of higher human cognition may be spatial, cognitive maps are not the only possible relational structure. With a behavioral experiment we aim to challenge the extent of the cognitive map hypothesis and to investigate when and how humans represent knowledge via the relational structure of cognitive grap