Schematic illustrating the sequence of new odors (depicted as colors) in Experiment 1 with 2 context transitions. The “new” item (i.e., odor) in each trial is rewarded (S+, denoted by “√”), whereas the “old” item is not rewarded (S−). In the first segment, the rats were presented with half of the items in Context A. Next, the rats were presented with all of the odors in Context B, including those already presented in Context A. Finally, in Context A, the rats were presented with the remaining half of the items that had not yet been presented in Context A. Six of 16 S+ items in each context are shown. See also and .

(A) Familiarity and item-in-context memories are confounded in (A). Banana and basil odors are depicted here as yellow and green, respectively. Initially, we presented banana in Context A, and we presented both basil and banana in Context B. Notably, basil was not presented in Context A, and, importantly, basil occurred before banana in Context B. Finally, the memory test occurred in Context A. In the memory test, the rats were presented with a choice between banana and basil in Context A. Critically, both familiarity and item-in-context memories would lead an animal to choose basil, the correct choice in the memory test. A small change in the order of items in Context B unconfounds these two alternatives, as shown in (B).
(B) Familiarity and item-in-context memories are dissociated in (B). Strawberry and blueberry odors are depicted here as red and blue, respectively. Initially, we presented strawberry in Context A, and we presented both strawberry and blueberry in Context B. Notably, blueberry was not presented in Context A, and strawberry occurred before blueberry in Context B. Finally, the memory assessment occurred in Context A. In the memory assessment, the rats were presented with a choice between strawberry and blueberry. The correct choice, based on item in context, is blueberry because it has not yet been presented in Context A. Blueberry is rewarded when chosen in this test and our measure of accuracy is the proportion of choices of the rewarded item. Importantly, prior to the memory assessment, blueberry was presented more recently than strawberry. Consequently, in the memory assessment, strawberry would be less familiar relative to blueberry. Thus, an animal that relied on judgments of relative familiarity would choose the strawberry in the memory assessment. By our measure of accuracy, this choice results in accuracy below chance. By contrast, an animal that relied on item-in-context memory would choose blueberry in the memory assessment, which results in above chance accuracy. Notably, this memory assessment dissociates item-in-context memory (above chance) from judgments of relative familiarity (below chance).
(A and B) The presence of additional odors (not shown) is identified by “…” in the schematic. The schematic focuses on S+ items (denoted by “√”) by omitting comparison S− items prior to the memory assessment. Trials depicted in (A) and (B) were randomly intermingled throughout daily testing.

(A) Item-in-context memory is shown by above chance accuracy following 2, 3, 5, and 15 context transitions. Initial performance comes from the first two memory assessments in each experiment; subsequent memory-assessment performance is labeled terminal. See also .
(B) Item-in-context memory survives a long retention-interval challenge.
Data are shown as mean +1 SEM.

An item (orange) is rewarded once (A) or twice (B) prior to a common memory test (choice between orange and purple in Context A). The other item (purple) is rewarded once in Context B. The second presentation of orange occurs after the memory test in (A). The trials depicted in (A) and (B) come from Experiment 2 (Contexts A→B→A→B).