Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 5, 2026

Brain Imaging Investigation of the Memory-Enhancing Effect of Emotion
Published on: May 4, 2011
Experts' memory: an ERP study of perceptual expertise effects on encoding and recognition
1Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado at Boulder, UCB 345, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA. grit.herzmann@googlemail.com
Abstract:
This study examined how perceptual expertise facilitates encoding and recognition. The electroencephalogram of car experts and car novices was recorded in the study as well as test phases of a remember/know task with car and bird stimuli. Car expertise influenced performance and event-related potentials (ERPs) for cars but not birds. Experts recognized and "recollected" cars more accurately, while novices had more false alarms. The ERPs provided neural evidence for theoretical assumptions about expert memory. Memory encoding in the study phase was less effortful and more elaborate for experts than novices, as indicated by lower mean amplitudes for subsequently "recollected" cars and by indistinguishable differences due to memory for recollection and familiarity. The parietal old/new effect, a correlate of recollection measured during recognition testing, was only found for experts. The results show that refined perceptual and semantic processing, characteristics of perceptual expertise, facilitate both memory encoding and recognition memory.
Related Concept Videos
Eyewitness Memory
One such error is memory distortion, which occurs because human memory does not function like a...
Explicit Memories
Episodic memory contains information about personally experienced events and is reported as a story. An example of episodic memory is recalling a birthday celebration. This type of memory includes the what, where, and when of an event, as...
Impact of Schemas
Halo Effect
Elaborative Rehearsals
The effectiveness of...
Serial Position Effect

