ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL BRAIN ACTIVITY AND MEMORY SOURCE MONITORING

To investigate brain mechanisms involved in identifying the origin of memories, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded as participant s discriminated previously presented (old) from new items or identifie d their earlier source (picture, word, or new). Differences in ERPs be tween old-new recognition and source identification were focused at fr ontal sites. For source identification, prominent negative deflections at occipital or frontal sites occurred depending on encoding task. Th ese results support a model in which memory attributes are distributed neocortically and the frontal lobes are critical for source monitorin g.