On the decay of event-files-Way more complex than previously thought

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Human Action Control

Background:

• Event-files integrate perception and action, comprising internal representations that are bound, maintained, and decay over time.
• The precise nature of event-file decay, particularly its functional form (linear vs. forgetting curve), remains unclear due to coarse-grained analyses in prior research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the decay function of event-files with high temporal resolution.
• To determine if event-file decay follows a typical forgetting curve, linking it to memory literature.
• To explore interindividual differences in event-file decay patterns.

Main Methods:

• Employed nine distinct response-stimulus intervals (RSIs) ranging from 400 ms to 2,000 ms.
• Utilized unsupervised cluster analysis on data from a large sample (N=156) of neurotypical participants.
• Examined decay patterns across a finer scale than previous studies.

Main Results:

• Unsupervised cluster analysis revealed heterogeneous decay functions across participants, not a single universal pattern.
• Only a subset of participants exhibited decay resembling a typical forgetting curve.
• The previously suggested power function for event-file decay may be an artifact of averaging across diverse individual patterns.

Conclusions:

• Event-file decay is modulated by interindividual differences, indicating personalized decay trajectories.
• The assumption of a consistent decay function across all individuals may be inaccurate.
• Further research is needed to understand the underlying processes driving these interindividual variations in event-file decay.