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Associative Memory Implicit Cognition Basic
Research and Implications for Prevention Alan
Stacy http//tprc.usc.edu/
Symposium III, Sunday 345pm astacy_at_usc.edu
909-794-2081
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Three sections

• Elements of associative memory framework
• Measurement paradigms
• Prevention possibilities

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I. Three Elements of Framework

• Associative memory connectionism
• Implicit processes
• Neurobiological plausibility

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1st Element of Framework Associative Memory
Connectionism
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Examples of Theories Modeling Associative Memory

• Connectionist approaches that model conceptual
  associations
• Multiple-trace (Hintzman)
• Hopfield Networks (e.g., Hopfield Tank Masson)
• Recurrent Networks (McClelland and Rumelhart
  Smith DeCoster)
• Others (eg., Nelson Murdock Eich, etc).

• Mixed models (Symbolic models, with some elements
  of connectionism ACT J.R. Anderson)

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Connectionist Approaches Basic Idea

• Cognition is
• Very dynamic, can change continuously
• Reflected in a pattern of activation in memory
• This pattern is dependent on
• The input or sequence (e.g., situation, preceding
  cognitive state)
• Associations in memory
• Symbolic concepts are not necessary (e.g., norms,
  attitudes, beliefs, etc).
• But they can be re-defined in terms of very
  NON-stable concepts
• Or combine into mixed models

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Examples of Evidence for Associative Memory
Processes

• Cued-recall Strongly associated memory cues lead
  to best memory
• False memoryFalse memories are predicted by
  strongest associates of words in a study list
• Semantic Priming Strong associates are often
  best primes

• Research in Amnesics Amnesics remember previous
  word pairs (on implicit tests of memory) if the
  words are strongly associated in memory.
• Neuroimaging associated cues (pictures, images,
  objects) trigger specific responses in the brain
• Other paradigms Also show importance of strong
  associations in memory (humans and animals)

For review, see Stacy, Ames, Knowlton (in press)
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One examples of a specific theory of associative
memory

• Multiple trace theory (Hintzman)

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Multiple Memory Traces Encode Associations Among
Emotion, Situations, and Behavior
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Another Critical Element Implicit Cognition
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Implicit Memory and Cognition

• Revealed on tests that do not require or foster
• Deliberate or conscious recollections
• Introspections about the causes of ones
  behavior
• Affects behavior through an automatic or at least
  relatively spontaneous process (e.g., memory
  activation), no conscious weighing of pros and
  cons.
• The framework does not require ANY traditional
  health behavior concept

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People engage in rational decisions regarding
substance use (weigh pros and cons)A sort of
cognitive algebra is implied, consistent with
symbolic approachesbut Addiction is almost
prototypical example of irrational behavior

• A CONTRAST
• Primary Assumption of Most Traditional Approaches
  to Drug Use Prevention

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Examples of theories and research areas that rely
on rational processing assumptions

• Health Belief Model
• Utility Theory
• Theory of Reasoned Action its Derivatives
• Most Attitude Theories
• Most Prevention Research

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Areas underscoring importance of implicit
processes

• Associative memory
• Decision theory Kahneman (2003)
• The automatic or implicit system is classified as
  System 1 the default system for making
  decisions.
• Social cognition
• Several approaches underscore importance of
  implicit cognition (e.g., Smith DeCoster, 1998)
• Neuroscience
• Many learning memory processes are supported by
  brain regions that do not involve conscious
  processing (e.g., Gabrieli, 1998)

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A Third Element of Framework Neurobiological
Plausibility
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Three memory systems (based on White, 1996)
involved in associative memory and drug use
AMYGDALA (incentive)
CAUDATE-PUTAMEN (habit)
HIPPOCAMPUS (declarative)
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A Broader Associative Memory Framework of
Alternative Hypotheses

• White suggests the direct (dotted-line) link on
  top (path W).
• Shultz (1998) suggests pattern matching occurs
  via association cortex, also implicated in
  semantic priming Gabrielli, 1998 paths A-B.)
• Reward signal is broadcast to frontal cortex
  (Shultz, path C)

From Stacy, Ames, Knowlton, in press cf.
Franken, in press.
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II. Some Promising Paradgims from Research on
Alcohol and Other Drugs

• Tests from basic cognitive research used in drug
  use
• Example of findings

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Examples of Cognitive Paradigms from Basic
Research

• Lexical decision in semantic priming
• Word naming in semantic priming
• Flicker paradigm
• Implicit association test (IAT)
• Affective priming
• Cue-effectiveness in extralist cued-recall
• False memory
• Process dissociation
• Stroop
• Word and picture association

Implicit cognition, associative memory framework
important new development in 10th Special Report
to US Congress on Alcohol and Health No test is
the gold standard
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Associative Memory Predicts Alcohol Marijuana
Use
Previous Alcohol Use

• Short-term prospective study of 340 college
  students (R2.82)
• Predictive effects replicate in cross-sectional
  studies of marijuana use, HIV-risk, and in
  diverse samples including
• Adult drug offenders
• High-risk (continuation high school) adolescents
• Adult driving-under-influence offenders
• Hispanic and White ethnicities

.54
Association Responses
.33
Beliefs About Alcohol Use
.09
Later Alcohol Use
Acculturation
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Sensation Seeking
Gender
Stacy, 1997, J.Ab.Psych
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III. Intervention Framework for Prevention

• Focus on input before behavior takes place
• Focus on connections of prevention material or
  skills, especially with the input
• Goal is to increase prevention-related memory
  activation

• Consistent with
• Connectionist models
• Traditional expectancy theories of Tolman
  Bolles, etc.
• Not usually addressed by prevention or survey
  research
• Cues connections not a focus there

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Intervention Framework
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Missing Links in Prevention I

• Need to MEASURE associative memories in
  prevention other interventions
• Improve existing measures
• Apply more measures from basic research
• Develop new measures
• See if prevention is ALREADY influencing
  associative memories
• Need better understanding of cognitive state
  during high risk situations the input to the
  system

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Missing Links in Prevention II

• Need to apply basic research interventions on
  memory to prevention
• Influence associations in memory
• Make program content more spontaneously activated
  in high-risk situations
• Study interplay between implicit cognitions and
  other processes (e.g., moderator effects)
• Executive functions
• Genetic influences on reward systems
• etc

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Acknowledgments

• Collaboration
• Multiple-trace theory Marvin Krank
• Neural processes Barbara Knowlton, Susan Ames
• Prevention Steve Sussman, Andy Johnson
• Multidisciplinary extension Tom Valente, Paula
  Palmer
• Implicit tests Susan Ames, Reinout Wiers, Martin
  Zack, Marvin Krank, Barbara Leigh
• Statistics and IT Chih-Ping Chou, Jennifer
  Unger, Ping Sun, Peggy Gallaher
• Others Roger Drake, Jerry Grenard, Kate
  Coronges, James Pike
• Funding
• Grant P50 DA16094 from the National Institute on
  Drug Abuse

http//tprc.usc.edu/
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Questions?
http//tprc.usc.edu/
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Supplementary slides

• For possible questions.

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Strategies consistent with basic research

• Repeated elaborations connecting several
  different situational features to program
  material
• Repeated practice of alternative behaviors and
  skills in an imagined or re-created high risk
  situation
• Feedback about associative responses and
  continued practice linking new associations
• Imagery that would encourage making abstract
  concepts more concrete and unitization of
  previously discrete situational and
  program-oriented materials and
• Assessments that detect persistent changes in
  associations, provide feedback, and measure
  mediators.

Stacy Ames, 2001 Stacy, Ames, Knowlton, in
press
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Influence of other variables?Examples of
interaction (moderator) hypotheses

• Cognitions may be implicitly activated, but
  individual differences in executive functioning
  may influence whether these cognitions are
  applied to behavior.
• Implicit cognition does not necessarily have a
  free reign on behavior
• Individual differences in neural systems of
  reward may influence development of connections
  in memory

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Hypoth 1. Indicators of Executive Functioning May
Moderate the Effects of Implicit Cognition on
Drug Use
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Hypoth 2 Individual differences may moderate
growth of associations involving drugs habit

• Mechanism?
• Possibly genetic effect on dopamine (reward)
  system (e.g., Sobol et al., 1999)

Growth of Associative Strength among Strong
Positive Affect, Cues, Drug Use
Experimental Drug Use
Growth of Addiction, Habit
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Another example of associative memory theory
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Similarity in a Hopfield Network

• RT robin-jay robin-raven robin-penguin

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Hopfield Neural Network for Drug Concepts or
Situations in Adolescence
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Associative memories only care about the input
and the connections to it, not what we want
people to remember An Example
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Memory Activation Depends on the Overlap of
Cognitive State (Input) and Trace Features
Input
Traces
The cognitive state activates memory traces
having the same features. The activated traces
may have additional features, which can influence
behavior
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Why not expectancy?

• Semantic priming literature expectancy is a
  postaccess decision process not an automatic
  memory process
• Memory literature Not used anywhere to measure
  or conceptualize associative memory
• All cognitive literatures It is not as general a
  concept as associative memory
• Other literatures Occasionally used to describe
  a predictive relationship in some associative
  paradigms

• If the concept helps your research or
  intervention, use it!
• Expectancy can be called a relationship or
  association
• Alcohol literature Often used synonymously with
• Belief
• Subjective probability
• An outcome (e.g., have fun)
• A network
• If-then rule
• Typically NOT linked to triggering cues (an
  essential concept from Tolman,etc)

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Connectionism is a Recent Evolution Synthesis
of Ideas/Findings
Association has been a CENTRAL concept in most of
these approaches but is usually ignored in
prevention
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Difference with S-R theories

• Reinforcement NOT necessary for learning or
  memory
• Many possible associations in memory are
  relevant, not just S-R associations.
• Associations in memory can be developed many
  ways vicariously, through education, through
  processing experiences (not just direct
  experience)
• Mediators can be objectively studied behavior is
  not the only thing that can be observed
• Associations in memory lead to holistic
  patterns that cannot always be determined in
  advance
• e.g., emergent properties of neural networks
• Focus is on a parallel pattern of activation
  across many different elements in memory, not
  single associations
• Retains importance of association because the
  findings remain supportive across diverse areas,
  methods species

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Example of outcome-behavior association measure
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Experimental Evidence Revealing Implications of
Word Association (WA) for Implicit Processes

• Research in Amnesics People with impaired
  conscious memory show normal memory on word
  assocation tests of implicit memory word
  association detects memory
• such tests do not require deliberate
  recollection.
• Primed free-association in normal subjects
  Strong associates are best cues word association
  detects memory.
• Extralist Cued-recall Strong associates are best
  cues
• False memory false memories are predicted by
  strongest associates of words in a study list
• Semantic Priming Strong associates revealed on
  association tests are often best primes

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Other example of associative memory measure
semantic priming in word naming
Alcohol-related prime-target pairs

• beer

• She felt good after she had the

drunk
They were more friendly when they were
Neutral pairs, with alcohol targets
drunk
They said they were
beer
They said it was the
Weingardt, Stacy, Leigh (1996 college students)
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Drinking habits predicted facilitation score
(faster responses to alcohol primes)
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Amnesic data provide some of the best evidence
for distinct neural basis of different types of
memory Implicit and Explicit
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Examples Shimamura Squire (1984, JEP Exp. 4)

• Study Trial. Korsakoff patients and alcoholic
  controls rated single words one-at-a-time for how
  much they liked the word (e.g., BABY).
• Test. After the study trial, participants were
  asked to perform a different task-- write the
  first word that comes to mind in response to a
  presented word (e.g., CHILD).

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Vaidya, Gabrieli, Keane, Monti (1995)
Similar Results
Note Visual presentation

• Overall, controls had significantly better recall
  (F11.1)
• Controls did not differ significantly in implicit
  memory (F
• Implicit associative memory test detected effect
  of study trial (F 6.24).

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Some Pros Cons

• CONS
• Cannot rule out filtering
• Must code responses
• 1st response may not be enough
• Does not sound as rigorous as RT tests
• Bound to be noise cannot be more than a rough
  measure of association

• PROS
• Unique in measuring relative access compared to
  all competitors
• A consistent predictor of memory responses in
  diverse cognitive paradigms
• Similar technique shows predictive utility in
  advertising research (top-of-mind awareness)
• No demonstrably better measure of association in
  memory
• Can measure memory even in amnesics

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Is word association truly an implicit test?

• In the proper experimental paradigm, probably so
  (e.g., amnesics vs. non manipulate encoding)
• In a study without an encoding trial, we do not
  know
• There is nothing to stop explicit retrieval or
  executive processing
• There is no comparison with an explicit retrieval
  condition
• It does take time to write down a wordthere is
  time for other processes to be engaged
• Yet, word association PREDICTS implicit memory
  processes in other paradigms (false memory,
  extralist cued recall, primed free association,
  semantic priming, at least)
• If word association PREDICTS later implicit
  processing, then
• It is very useful even though it may sometimes
  involve other processes

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A less consistent finding
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Effect sizes as correlations(reversed signs)


Small to moderate correlations
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Bottom line on measures?

• There are feasible measures, with basic research
  support and some evidence in drug abuse area
• Other research teams also show support
• These measures can be improved further
  validated
• New measures need to be developed in a parallel
  effort
• Such measures seem capable of assessing mediators
  of behavior AND program effects

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Improvement Prevention Applications in a New
Center
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Transdisciplinary Drug Abuse Prevention Research
Center (USC TPRC)

• Co-investigators/researchers
• Susan Ames (multiple roles)
• Stan Azen
• Lourdes Baezconde-Garbanati
• Chih-Ping Chou (stat core leader)
• Peggy Gallaher
• Elahe Nezami
• Paula Palmer (multiple roles)
• Anamara Ritt-Olson
• Ping Sun
• Jennifer Unger (multiple roles)
• Tom Valente (project PI)

• Director
• Alan Stacy
• Co-directors
• Andy Johnson (also training core leader)
• Steve Sussman (also a project PI)
• Staff administrator
• James Pike
• http//tprc.usc.edu/

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One example 3 Areas of Basic Cognitive Research
Stacy, Ames, Sussman
Sussman, Valente, Johnson
Knowlton
?
Tprc team
Nelson
Chou Tprc team
Sussman, Ames, Stacy
Stacy, Ames
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The Motivation-Skills-Decision Making Model
(MSD) of Problem
Behavior
Motivation/ Cognitive Misperceptions
Behavior Social and -Violence-
related Self-control Skills -Drug
use Decision Making
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Project TND Curriculum
Outline Session 1 Introduction Communication
and Active Listening Session 2 Stereotyping Sessio
n 3 Myths and Denial Session 4 Chemical
Dependency Session 5 Talk Show Session
6 Marijuana Panel Session 7 Tobacco Basketball
and Cessation Session 8 Stress, Health, and
Goals Session 9 Self-control Session 10 Positive
and Negative Thought and Behavior
Loops Session 11 Perspectives Session
12 Decision-making and Commitment Note
Three new lessons added to the TND-I 9 sessions
curriculum that are constituents of the newer
TND-II 12-session curriculum.
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Shultz (1998)
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From Shultz (1998) Broadcast from midbrain to
striatum and frontal cortex

• VTA ventral tegmental region of midbrain
• SN substantia nigra region of midbrain
• Midbrain top of brain stem
• Caudate-Putamen region of striatum in basal
  ganglia

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Lexical versus Semantic Associations
Suppose you never saw these words before and did
not know their meanings

• Cervesa Corona

Now suppose you experienced these word pairs
repeatedly over time, but still learning nothing
else about them

• Later, if you see the letters Cervesa, you may
  access an association to the letters in Corona
  (their look or sound)
• But a picture or a word for beer would not lead
  you to think Corona

Cervesa Corona
Cervesa Corona
Cervesa Corona
Cervesa Corona
Cervesa Corona
Cervesa Corona
Cervesa Corona
Cervesa Corona
Cervesa Corona