Dr. Caitlin Bowman, Assistant Professor of Psychology at UW-Milwaukee, will present a talk about her research, entitled ‘Brain Mechanisms of Memory Specificity and Generalization and Their Age-Related Change’. Learn more about Dr. Caitlin Bowman’s work here.

Healthy memory function involves both the ability to remember details of individual past events (specificity) and the ability to link across events to form knowledge that applies to new situations (generalization). How does the brain represent past experiences to allow for both memory functions? In Dr. Bowman’s work, she uses quantitative models of concept generalization that make different predictions about the role of specific vs. generalized representations in memory decisions. She has linked predictions of these models to signals in the brain to test whether both specific and generalized representations coexist at the neural level. Dr. Bowman’s ongoing work focuses on whether advanced age, which is known to impair memory specificity, also affects memory generalization. By identifying the processes that underlie these adaptive memory functions, Dr. Bowman ultimately aims to find ways to support new learning and effective decision-making in people across the adult lifespan.

The presentation will begin at 4:00 PM via Microsoft Teams, preceded by an informal Q&A from 3:45 – 4:00 PM.