Prior research has reported that the medial temporal, parietal, and frontal brain regions are associated with visual statistical learning (VSL). However, the neural mechanisms involved in both memory enhancement and impairment induced by VSL remain unknown. In this study, we examined this issue using event-related fMRI. fMRI data from the familiarization scan showed a difference in the activation level of the superior frontal gyrus (SFG) between structured triplets, where three objects appeared in the same order, and pseudorandom triplets. More importantly, the precentral gyrus and paracentral lobule responded more strongly to Old Turkic letters inserted into the structured triplets than to those inserted into the random triplets, at the end of the familiarization scan. Furthermore, fMRI data from the recognition memory test scan, where participants were asked to decide whether the objects or letters shown were old (presented during familiarization scan) or new, indicated that the middle frontal gyrus and SFG responded more strongly to objects from the structured triplets than to those from the random triplets, which overlapped with the brain regions associated with VSL. In contrast, the response of the lingual gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, and cuneus was weaker to letters inserted into the structured triplets than to those inserted into the random triplets, which did not overlap with the brain regions associated with observing the letters during the familiarization scan. These findings suggest that different brain regions are involved in memory enhancement and impairment induced by VSL.

先前的研究报告称，内侧颞叶、顶叶和额叶大脑区域与视觉统计学习 (VSL) 相关。然而，VSL 引起的记忆增强和损伤所涉及的神经机制仍然未知。在这项研究中，我们使用事件相关的 fMRI 检查了这个问题。来自熟悉扫描的 fMRI 数据显示结构化三胞胎（其中三个物体以相同顺序出现）和伪随机三胞胎之间的额上回 (SFG) 的激活水平存在差异。更重要的是，在熟悉扫描结束时，中央前回和中央旁小叶对插入结构化三胞胎中的古突厥语字母的反应比插入随机三胞胎中的那些更强烈。此外，来自识别记忆测试扫描的 fMRI 数据，参与者被要求决定显示的物体或字母是旧的（在熟悉扫描期间呈现）还是新的，表明额中回和 SFG 对来自结构化三胞胎的物体的反应比来自重叠的随机三胞胎的物体反应更强烈与 VSL 相关的大脑区域。相比之下，舌回、颞上回和楔叶对插入结构化三元组中的字母的反应比插入随机三元组中的字母弱，这与在熟悉过程中观察字母相关的大脑区域不重叠扫描。这些发现表明，不同的大脑区域参与了 VSL 诱导的记忆增强和损伤。