Contextual elaboration shapes object recognition memory across levels of childhood adversity in healthy adults

Abstract

Abstract Childhood adversity is a known risk factor for psychopathology across the lifespan. One proposed mechanism involves long-term alterations in hippocampal memory systems, leading to disruptions in the integration of episodic memory within its contextual framework. It is therefore essential to investigate how individuals exposed to early life stress use contextual information during memory formation. We conducted an experimental study in healthy adults ( n  = 76), manipulating the depth of contextual encoding. Participants viewed object-background pairs under either contextual or object-focused conditions, followed by a surprise memory test assessing object recognition and mnemonic discrimination. Childhood adversity was measured using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Contrary to our initial hypothesis, contextual elaboration did not enhance recognition performance, but appeared to increase cognitive demands during encoding. We propose that increased contextual processing shifted attentional allocation away from object-specific information, thereby limiting recognition performance. Differences in recognition outcomes across conditions may further reflect variations in the strength and discriminative value of familiarity-based memory signals under differing encoding demands. We additionally observed a descriptive association between higher levels of childhood adversity and reduced object recognition performance under object-focused encoding conditions. These findings suggest that associations between childhood adversity and memory performance may emerge in a task-dependent manner and can be situated within broader theoretical accounts emphasizing the role of contextual factors in episodic memory implicated in vulnerability to mental health outcomes following early life stress.