Memory neuroscientists often measure neural activity during task trials designed to recruit specific memory processes. Behavior is championed as crucial for deciphering brain–memory linkages but is impoverished in typical experiments that rely on summary judgments. We criticize this approach as being blind to the multiple cognitive, neural, and behavioral processes that occur rapidly within a trial to support memory. Instead, time-resolved behaviors such as eye movements occur at the speed of cognition and neural activity. We highlight successes using eye-movement tracking with in vivo electrophysiology to link rapid hippocampal oscillations to encoding and retrieval processes that interact over hundreds of milliseconds. This approach will improve research on the neural basis of memory because it pinpoints discrete moments of brain–behavior–cognition correspondence.

记忆神经科学家经常在旨在招募特定记忆过程的任务试验中测量神经活动。行为被认为对于破译大脑与记忆的联系至关重要，但在依赖于总结判断的典型实验中却显得很贫乏。我们批评这种方法对支持记忆的试验中快速发生的多种认知、神经和行为过程视而不见。相反，时间分辨行为（例如眼球运动）以认知和神经活动的速度发生。我们重点介绍了使用眼动跟踪和体内电生理学将快速海马振荡与相互作用超过数百毫秒的编码和检索过程联系起来的成功。这种方法将改善记忆神经基础的研究，因为它精确地定位了大脑-行为-认知对应关系的离散时刻。