Human Replay Spontaneously Reorganizes Experience

Knowledge abstracted from previous experiences can be transferred to aid new learning. Here, we asked whether such abstract knowledge immediately guides the replay of new experiences. We first trained participants on a rule defining an ordering of objects and then presented a novel set of objects in a scrambled order. Across two studies, we observed that representations of these novel objects were reactivated during a subsequent rest. As in rodents, human "replay" events occurred in sequences accelerated in time, compared to actual experience, and reversed their direction after a reward. Notably, replay did not simply recapitulate visual experience, but followed instead a sequence implied by learned abstract…

• JS
  James S. McDonnell Foundation

  Awards: JSMF220020372, 203139/Z/16/Z
• WT
  Wellcome Trust

  Awards: 104765/Z/14/Z, 098362/Z/12/Z
• D
  DeepMind
• UC
  University College London
• M
  Max-Planck-Gesellschaft