Chang, Claire H. C.; Lazaridi, Christina; Yeshurun, Yaara; Norman, Kenneth A.; Hasson, Uri
Abstract:
This study examined how the brain dynamically updates event representations by integrating new information over multiple minutes while segregating irrelevant input. A professional writer custom-designed a narrative with two independent storylines, interleaving across minute-long segments (ABAB). In the last (C) part, characters from the two storylines meet and their shared history is revealed. Part C is designed to induce the spontaneous recall of past events, upon the recurrence of narrative motifs from A/B, and to shed new light on them. Our fMRI results showed storyline-specific neural patterns, which were reinstated (i.e. became more active) during storyline transitions. This effect increased along the processing timescale hierarchy, peaking in the default mode network. Similarly, the neural reinstatement of motifs was found during part C. Furthermore, participants showing stronger motif reinstatement performed better in integrating A/B and C events, demonstrating the role of memory reactivation in information integration over intervening irrelevant events.
The dielectric function for "Astrodust" grain material is provided for different assumed values of the dust grain shape (spheroid axis ratio) and porosity (vacuum fraction), and fraction of the interstellar iron present as metallic inclusions. For each case, the dielectric function is obtained by requiring that the grains reproduce the observed infrared opacity, and match to a physically reasonable dielectric function at 1 micron, and extending to X-ray energies. The derived dielectric functions satisfy the Kramers-Kronig relations. Dielectric functions are provided from 1 Angstrom to 5 cm (12.4 keV to 2.59e-5 eV).
For each dielectric function, we also calculate absorption and scattering corss sections for spheroidal grains, for three orientations of the grain relative to incident linearly-polarized light, for wavelengths from the Lyman limit (0.0912 micron) to the microwave (4 cm), and grain "effective radii" a_eff from 3.162A to 5.012 micron.