Exploring Memory Development in Early Childhood: Key Models and Theories

1. Week 8 – Memory Development • Exams marks on-line • Finalize your topic soon! • Small assignment due November 18th

2. Week 8; Memory • Atkinson & Shiffrin’s model revisited

3. Information Processing System(Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968) Response : via recognition or recall Input from outside Long-term memory: Permanent store of info; knowledge about world; past events; procedures; Meta-knowledge Storage Attention Working memory: holds info for short time; can do stuff with it Sensory Register Retrieval Executive Functions: plan and perform each step of info processing

4. Week 8; Memory • Atkinson & Shiffrin’s model revisited • Long-term memory includes declarative and procedural memory • Declarative composed of episodic and semantic; Focus is on the declarative part of memory • Memory is not one thing, and resides in different areas

5. Relevant Definitions • Recall • Free – straight remembering with no help • Cued – some kind of “hint” given • Recognition • Similar to cued recall, but less of a hint • Location memory • A-not-B • Spatial span

6. Corsi Blocks task 4 2 1 3 7 5 6 9 8

7. Relevant Definitions • Recall • Free – straight remembering with no help • Cued – some kind of “hint” given • Recognition • Similar to cued recall, but usually a choice involved • Location memory • A-not-B • Spatial span • Context-independent learning • Kinds of tasks usually tapped in lab work

8. Infantile Amnesia • We don’t tend to have very early memories: Why? • Vygotsky’s theory • Learning with parent’s and teacher’s help • Piaget’s Theory • Lack of symbolic thought • “Cognitive Structures” aren’t in place to develop memories • Information-Processing • Can’t attend efficiently; language allows top-down processing • Fuzzy-Trace Theory

9. Favoured explanations… • Lack of correspondence between encoding mechanisms and later retrieval cues • Brain structures not yet in place • Lack of sense of self

10. Memory in Babies • Was once thought to be impossible • Rovee-Collier and colleagues’ mobile paradigm • Used conditioning paradigm with 2 month olds • 3 phases: • Baseline (3 minutes) • Training (9 minutes) • Retention (after a delay of hours to days) www.wwnorton.com/psychsci/activity/ch11_activity1.htm

12. Babies as young as 3 months have shown retention up to 2 weeks Babies younger than 2 months for shorter times (a few days) Context is important in this task Environment specificity Crib and room variations Mobile specificity Visual Pop-out effect Memory in Babies 2

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17. Memory in Babies 3 • A-not-B task (Diamond) • Must impose longer and longer delays to elicit error with age: related to memory for location • Sequencing of mobiles • Will remember 3 mobiles in particular order they were presented • Deferred Imitation • Barr, Vieira, & Rovee-Collier (2001) • Showed imitation in 6-month-olds • Showed priming and association memory for this imitation

21. Implicit Memory • Exercise

22. Complete the word stems awa___ sno___ dro___ ste___ mon___ cri___ ban___ rec___ cus___ ben___

23. Implicit Memory • Exercise • Refers to incidental learning that occurs when you are not trying to learn • Does not seem to change much over lifespan • Children in learning pictures: explicit memories improve, implicit do not (i.e. always pretty good) • E.g. habituation / dishabituation

24. Event Memory • Script-based memory develops around 3; this is when children recognize relevant aspects of an event • They will remember repeated events, rather than isolated ones • However, more significant events can be remembered with prompting and questioning • Liwag & Stein, 1995 • Burgwyn-Bailes, Baker-Ward, Gordon, & Ornstein, 2001

25. Source-monitoring • Children have trouble remembering who said what • “I did it” bias • Doll and dollhouse tasks

26. Eyewitness Testimony - adults • Adults are bad witnesses! • Class e.g. • Loftus’ work • Adults susceptible to suggestion • Bransford & Franks • Age regression therapy • Spanos, Burgess, Burgess, Samuel, & Blois, 1999 • 68/78 participants had false recall, and nearly half reported very strong memories of the day after birth

27. Eyewitness Testimony • Very young children won’t volunteer information • Will give info when asked specific questions • BUT risk of false information goes up, esp. in younger kids • With age, amount of false info goes down • Fuzzy-Trace theory

28. Can be susceptible to suggestion • Ceci & Bruck, 1993: • 88% preschoolers susceptible to suggestion • Source-monitoring is a problem again • Repeated questioning may lead to false info. • Design of questions is important • Poole & Lindsay, 1993

29. Eyewitness, continued • Young children can acquire false memories • But must be plausible • Can’t predict one kind of memory from another • Factors affecting false recall: • Knowledge base • Characteristics of the interview process

30. Should we use children as eyewitnesses given susceptibility? • Yes, but not under 5 • (although may be ok younger, depending on trauma involved)

31. Suggestions for using Child Witnesses • Ask non-leading questions • Limit number of times they are interviewed * • “I don’t remember” is ok • Remain friendly and patient • Avoid family presence if topic is sensitive • Maybe use a videotape of early interview • Avoid props

32. Factors affecting children’s memory • Knowledge-base • Older children always remember more than younger, even if no structure is imposed: they know more • If they know more about topic, they will remember more (applies to young and old) • The more knowledge they acquire, the more likely they are to make unlikely connections and remember • Personal Relevance • Classmates example

33. Metamemory • What children know about memory and memory processes • 3 stages of remembering: • Diagnosis • Treatment • Monitoring • Very young children overestimate what they know about the treatment phase, don’t think strategy will help • Children don’t spontaneously use a strategy until they are 10-12 years old, indicating lack of metamemory knowledge

34. Memory-Metamemory Connection • Could be that improvements in memory retrieval leads to value placed on strategies, resulting in increased metamemory knowledge • Maybe increased understanding of memory leads to strategy usage, and hence better retrieval • Relationship seems to be an interaction

35. Lifespan Stability of Memory • Implicit memory for benign events is in place quite early, as seen in infant research, and does not show age-related advances or declines • Strategy use increases with age, indicating that explicit memory develops, and declines in old age • Given than memory abilities vary according to task, seems to be domain-specific ability, with different abilities developing at different times

36. Lifespan changes in span • Different span measures elicit different lifespan patterns (my dissertation ) • Corsi blocks • Sequencing span (forward digit for kids) • Auditory working memory task

37. Mean scores on span tasks

38. Review Exercise on Memory • Big name in baby memory with mobiles? ________________ • What develops first, scripts or specific events? • Can be created in young children through repeated questioning_______________ • True or false: There is no evidence of age-related changes in explicit memory. • Which of the following helps retrieval most: Free recall or cued recall?