Memory development

Memory development Psych. 414 Prof. Jessica Sommerville

Learning objectives • Identify developmental changes in memory • Discuss factors that contribute to changes in memory development • Recognize implications for real world issues (text)

Strategies • Major source of development • General trends in development • Mediational deficiency: no usage • Production deficiency: don’t spontaneously use strategy but can be trained to use it • Utilization deficiency: spontaneously use strategy but accrue little benefit • Age-related changes in use of specific strategies: attentional strategies, rehearsal, organization,

Attentional strategies • Intentionally focusing on most relevant information • Miller and colleagues • Children shown objects from two categories (e.g., animals and furniture) • Told only need to remember one category • 7- and 8-year-olds only pay attention to one category; 3- and 4-year-olds attend to both

Rehearsal • Repeating presented information • Spontaneous rehearsal becomes more common throughout grade school years • Changes in rehearsal style as a function of age: • Ornstein et al (1975): • Presented with list of words; told to rehearse (e.g., yard, man, cat, desk) • 3rd-graders: passive rehearsal style (cat, cat, cat…) • 8th-graders: active rehearsal style (cat, man, yard, cat)

Organization • Discovering or imposing structure on items to guide subsequent performance (e.g., organize list into categories) • Salatas & Flavell (1976): • 1st graders presented with 16 pictures from 4 different categories • Exp. named pictures and categories then randomly distributed pictures on table • Told to put pictures in a way that would help them remember • Only 27% organized pictures according to categories • Performance improves with salient task directions

Metamemory • Knowledge about memory and own memory capabilities • Kindergarten age children are not aware that/when memory is imperfect and are unaware of the conditions under which memory improves/decreases • Younger children require feedback in order to transfer a memory strategy; older children do not

Remembering events • Infantile amnesia: inability to recall early events • Total block = before 3 • Few memories = 3-6 • Autobiographical memory: memory for specific events that happened to you • Emerges at ~4

Autobiographical memory • What accounts for the onset of autobiographical memory? • Changes in event encoding • Changes in sense of self • Changes in discussions about past events • Changes in the brain

Changes in event encoding (Simcock & Hayne) • Events that were encoded before child has language to describe those events may not be accessible to verbal memory • Autobiographical memory emerges once children have the ability to encode an event verbally

Changes in event encoding (Simcock & Hayne) • Evidence: • 27-, 33- and 39-month-old children took part in a unique event • Tested 6 months to 1 year later; verbal abilities measured during both time points • Although children demonstrated successful nonverbal memory performance they could not verbally recall the event, despite having the language skills to do so • Problems: • At 3 children talk quite well but they don’t form memories that endure into adulthood

Changes in sense of self (Howe) • Advent of “cognitive self” (18-24 months) accounts for offset of autobiographical memory • Pass mirror self-recognition task at this age • The self functions to bind memories (referent around which events can be organized) and for events to have personal significance

Changes in sense of self (Howe) • Evidence: • Kids with successful MSR performance have better event memory (controlling for language and retention length) • No child successful on event memory task before achieving MSR • Problems: • Advent of autobiographical memory is later than successful MSR performance

Narrative construction of autobiographical memory • Transition to activity of remembering: learning to structure events in a narrative format • Talk may contribute to memory processes: • Structure and reinstatement • Autobiographical memory enables us to predict and interpret future events to share experiences with others

Narrative construction of autobiographical memory • Evidence: • Children of elaborative mothers remember more than children with pragmatic/repetitive mothers • Culture differences in emergence of autobiographical memory; linked to prevalence of elaborative mothers • Children don’t remember things that aren’t talked about with their mothers • Problems: • Parents discuss events with 2- and 3-year-olds and yet these events aren’t always remembered

Memory development