Remembering perceptual features unequally bound in object and episodic tokens: Neural mechanisms and their electrophysiological correlates

Abstract

We present a neurocognitive model of long-term object memory. We propose that perceptual priming and episodic recognition are phenomena based on three distinct kinds of representations. We label these representations types and tokens. Types are prototypical representations needed for object identification. The network of non-arbitrary features necessary for object categorization is sharpened in the course of repeated identification, an effect that we call type trace and which causes perceptual priming. Tokens, on the other hand, support episodic recognition. Perirhinal structures are proposed to bind intrinsic within-object features into an object token that can be thought of as a consolidated perceptual object file. Hippocampal structures integrate object- with contextual information in an episodic token. The reinstatement of an object token is assumed to generate a feeling of familiarity, whereas recollection occurs when the reinstatement of an episodic token occurs. Retrieval mode and retrieval orientation dynamically modulate access to these representations. In this review, we apply the model to recent empirical research (behavioral, fMRI, and ERP data) including a series of studies from our own lab. We put specific emphasis on the effects that sensory features and their study-test match have on familiarity. The type-token approach fits the data and additionally provides a framework for the analysis of concepts like unitization and associative reinstatement.