Statistical learning of temporal community structure in the hippocampus

Anna C. Schapiro, Nicholas B. Turk-Browne, Kenneth A. Norman, Matthew M. Botvinick

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

169 Scopus citations

Abstract

The hippocampus is involved in the learning and representation of temporal statistics, but little is understood about the kinds of statistics it can uncover. Prior studies have tested various forms of structure that can be learned by tracking the strength of transition probabilities between adjacent items in a sequence. We test whether the hippocampus can learn higher-order structure using sequences that have no variance in transition probability and instead exhibit temporal community structure. We find that the hippocampus is indeed sensitive to this form of structure, as revealed by its representations, activity dynamics, and connectivity with other regions. These findings suggest that the hippocampus is a sophisticated learner of environmental regularities, able to uncover higher-order structure that requires sensitivity to overlapping associations.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)3-8
Number of pages6
JournalHippocampus
Volume26
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2016

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Cognitive Neuroscience

Keywords

  • Background connectivity
  • Event representation
  • FMRI
  • Pattern analysis
  • Transition probability

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Statistical learning of temporal community structure in the hippocampus'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this