HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 1 PSYCHOLOGY 3050: Memory Development (Ch 8) Dr. Jamie Drover SN-3094, 864-8383 e-mail -- [email protected] Winter Semester, 2015

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 1 PSYCHOLOGY 3050:

Memory Development (Ch 8)

Dr. Jamie DroverSN-3094, 864-8383

e-mail -- [email protected] Semester, 2015

Representation of Knowledge

• Information in the long-term store can be represented in two ways (Tulving, 1985).

• Declarative memory: facts and events. Two types.• Episodic memory: memory for episodes (explicit).• Semantic memory: knowledge of language, rules,

concepts, facts, and events.


• Nondeclarative/Procedural Memory: Knowledge of procedures that are unconscious.

• Can include familiar routines.• AKA implicit memory as it is unavailable to conscious

awareness.– Can only be assessed indirectly.

• Different brain areas may be responsible for different memory types.– Domain-specific


• Nondeclarative/Procedural Memory: Knowledge of procedures that are unconscious.

• Can include familiar routines.• AKA implicit memory as it is unavailable to conscious

awareness.– Can only be assessed indirectly.

• Different brain areas may be responsible for different memory types.– Domain-specific

Memory Development in Infancy: Preference for Novelty as an Indication of Memory

• Usually assessed using the habituation/ dishabituation paradigm.

• Researchers also use preference-for-novelty paradigms.

• Infants are shown a novel stimulus and a familiarized one.

• Preference for the novel stimulus is seen as memory for the familiar one.

Memory Development in Infancy: Preference for Novelty as an Indication of Memory

• Fagan (1973, 1974) found that 5- and 6-month-olds will show visual memories for stimuli following brief exposures.

• These memories can last two weeks.

• Spence (1996) had mothers of 1-month-olds read nursery rhymes over a 2 week period.

• Using the sucking rate paradigm, infants will adjust sucking rate to hear the familiar rhyme even after a 3 day delay.

Memory Development in Infancy: Conjugate Reinforcement Procedure

• Rovee-Collier (1999) tied a ribbon to an infant’s ankle and connected it to a mobile.


• In the first 3 minutes, the ribbon is not connected to the mobile (baseline nonreinforcement).

• In the next 9 minutes, the ribbon and mobile are connected.

• Following delays, infants are placed back in the crib and their foot is connected to the ribbon.

• If they show a high kicking rate, it reflects memory.


• 3-month-olds were tested using this procedure.• They showed no forgetting after 8 days.• In related research, 8-week-olds showed that they

could retain these memories for 2 weeks.• Rovee-Collier has also focused on the role of context

in memory– How similar must the learning environment and testing

environment be to remember?


• Infants were seated in a playpen with a very distinctive cloth.

• Infants underwent the standard kicking training.• For the test, infants could be placed in the same

context (same cloth) or in a different context (different cloth).

• When in the same context, infants demonstrate far better retention.

• Older infants have been tested with the train task.

• Infants sit in front of a miniature train set and learn that they can move the train around by pressing a lever.

• Infants are tested after a delay by sitting in front of the lever which is now not connected to the train.


How Long Do Infants’ Memories Last?

• Infants’ memories last longer with age.

Deferred Imitation

• Infants’ long-term memory has been tested using deferred imitation.

• Imitating a model after a significant delay.• Infants can remember novel actions for as long as

one year.• Bauer (2002) tested infants with a 3-step task.– Placed a bar across two posts– Hung a plate from the bar– Struck the plate with a mallet (p. 311)


• Following delays (1-12 months), infants were given the materials and tested for deferred imitation (see Table 8-5, p. 312).– Rate of deferred imitation was higher in older children.– Older children can handle longer delays.


• Deferred imitation likely relies on several brain areas– hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, structures within the

temporal lobe.– The hippocampus underlies the earliest deferred imitation.– To retain information following long delays, these areas

need to mature and coalesce.

Infantile Amnesia

• The inability to recall information from early childhood.– We are unable to remember events that happened before

we were 3.5 or 4 years of age.

• We lack autobiographical memories.– Personal and long-lasting memories which are the basis for

one’s personal life history.

• Usher and Neisser (1993) found that the earliest memory for college students was about 2 years of age.

Why Can’t We Remember Early Events?

• Two explanations.1. Information is not stored for long-term retention

before 2 years of age.2. The information is encoded differently.• The second explanation is more likely.• When we are older, our minds are no longer like

those of infants.– We now use verbal symbols.


• Infants are tested on recall of motor memories, whereas children and adults are tested on verbal memories.

• Infants can not convert memories into verbal memories.

• Simcock and Hayne (2002) showed children (27-39 months) sequences of actions and interviewed them 6 and 12 months later.



• After the delay, although they had the verbal ability, most children did not use it to describe the previous experience.

• They did so only if they had the vocabulary to describe the event when it was experienced.

• More verbally sophisticated children at the time of the initial test verbally recalled the event.

• Children could not translate earlier preverbal experiences into language.


• But why can 3- and 4-year-olds recount verbally events that happened years before?

• Howe and Courage (1993) believe that in order to lay down and retrieve autobiographical memories, a sense of self is needed.– This develops in the preschool years.– Unless events can be related to the self, they can not be

retrieved later.

Implicit Memory

• Unconscious memories. Memory without awareness.

• Implicit and explicit memories appear to be governed by different brain systems.

• The hippocampus is involved with explicit memories.

• HM had hippocampal brain damage.• He could learn new skills with no memory of being

taught those skills.• His implicit memory was intact.• He couldn’t recall learning it.– He lacked explicit memory.

Implicit Memory

Implicit Memory

• There appear to be few age differences on implicit memory.

• Researchers test this using fragmented pictures that the child has to identify.

Implicit Memory

• Hayes and Hennessy (1996) showed 4-, 5-, and 10-year-old children a series of pictures on one day and asked them to identify the picture or asked to answer questions about the item.

• Two days later, the children were shown some of the previous pictures and some new ones to identify in the fragmented picture task.

Implicit Memory

• Older children identified more pictures and recognized more that they had seen earlier.

• The priming effect was equal for children of all ages.• The degree to which they identified old pictures

more quickly than new pictures.– They could do this even if they could not remember seeing

the pictures two days earlier.• i.e., implicit memory.

Implicit Memory

• Newcombe and Fox (1994) showed 9- and 10-year-olds pictures of 4- and 5-year-olds, some of whom were there classmates.

• They had to recognize their classmate (explicit memory) while their skin conductance was being measured (implicit memory).

• There was no difference on skin conductance between children who did well or poorly on the explicit task.

The Development of Event Memory

• Things that happen to us during the course of everyday life.

• It’s explicit, but encoding is unintentional.

• How do children remember events?• The event must be attended and

perceived.• Young children pay attention to

different aspects of an event than do adults.– Children sometimes attend to

trivial events.

The Development of Event Memory

• Event memory is constructive in nature.• We recall gist implying that we transform the event.• Our memory for events is influenced by our previous

knowledge.

Script-Based Memory

• Preschool children organize their event memory in terms of scripts.

• A form of schematic organization of real-world events organized in terms of their causal and temporal characteristics.– Fast food restaurant script

• Young children and even pre-verbal infants appear to organize information temporally into scripts.

Script-Based Memory

• Bauer and Mandler (1989) showed infants from 11.5 to 20 months a sequence of events.

• Children were then given the materials.

• Children re-enacted the sequence of events in the same temporal order they had been shown.

• Because children use scripts they tend not to remember specific details.– See Fivush and Hamond (1990) on

p. 279.

Script-Based Memory

• Children tend to recall routine information rather than novel aspects of a special event.

• Nelson (1996) believes that script-based memory has adaptive value by permitting children to predict the likelihood of events in the future.– Memory is designed to retain information about frequent

and recurrent events.

Children as Eyewitnesses: Age Differences

• In typical studies, children observe an event or activity and are not told that they will be asked to remember what they view.

• Later they are asked what they remember.• They are asked free recall questions, cued recall

questions, and recognition questions.

How Much do They Remember, and How Accurate are They?

• Preschool children remember only a small proportion of the event in response to free-recall questions.– What they recall is highly accurate and central to the

event.

• When given general cues, they recall more information; more correct and incorrect facts.

• These false memories can persist after long delays and when asked to recognize.

• False memories can not be based on verbatim information; it is based on gist and is, therefore, resistant to forgetting.

How Much do They Remember, and How Accurate are They?

How Long Do Memories Last?

• With delays of one month or less, children of all ages remember about the same proportion of accurate and inaccurate information as they did originally.

• After 6 month delays, 6 year-olds’ recall is less accurate than that of adults.

How Long Do Memories Last?

• According to fuzzy trace, there is a greater rate of decay of verbatim (exact) memories relative to gist (false) memories.

Factors Influencing Children’s Eyewitness Memory

• Factors include IQ, incentives to be accurate, intermediate levels of stress, and emotionally supportive mothers.

The Role of Knowledge• Children who know more about medical procedures

remember more about the procedure.• Ornstein et al. (1998) tested 4- and 6-year-old

children’s recall of a mock physical exam.


• The exam included typical and atypical features.• Children were interviewed about the exam after a 12

week delay.• They were asked open-ended questions followed by

increasingly specific questions.• Also asked specific questions about things that did

not happen.


• Typical features are more likely to be recalled correctly than atypical features.– The children likely had a script for the exam.

• Children were more likely to correctly reject nonevents for the atypical features.

• Children were more likely to say false events occurred when they were typical as opposed to atypical.


Characteristics of the Interview• Children recall little in response to open-ended free

recall questions, but it is accurate.• They recall more with cues, but are more inaccurate.• What about anatomically correct dolls?• Bruck et al. (1995) interviewed 3-year-olds following

a medical exam.


• Half received a genital exam whereas the other half did not.

• Using the doll they were asked whether the doctor touched their genitals.– Half of the group that received the exam said yes.– Half of the group that did not receive the exam said yes.– 50% of the children who did not receive the exam pointed

to the anal or genital region.


• How warm or supportive an interview is can also influence accuracy.

• 4- to 6-year-old children who had high levels of stress showed increased accuracy when tested by an emotionally supportive interviewer.

• Showed reduced accuracy when questioned by a non-supportive interviewer.

Age Differences in Suggestibility

• To what extent are children susceptible to suggestion?

• Are children more suggestible than adults and what factors influence suggestibility?

• Children do indeed appear to be more suggestible than adults.

How Do Children Respond to Misleading Questions?

• Cassel and Bjorklund (1995) showed 6- and 8-year-old children, and college students a video of a boy taking a girl’s bike without permission.

• All subjects were interviewed 15 mins, 1 week, and 1 month later.

• They were asked misleading questions or positive-leading questions in the later interviews.

• 6- and 8-year-olds follow the lead of the interviewer.


• They had more incorrect responses to misleading questions and more correct responses to positive-leading questions.

• In the final interview, they were asked leading questions by one examiner and then opposite questions by another examiner.

• The children typically changed their minds to agree with the second examiner.


• Goodman and Clarke-Stewart (1991) had children observe a janitor clean toys or play with them inappropriately.

• Children in the first condition were asked questions that suggested the janitor had played with the toys inappropriately.

• Two-thirds of the children followed these suggestions and did not alter this new interpretation even when questioned by their parents.


• Why are young children so susceptible to misinformation?

• According to Fuzzy-trace theory, verbatim traces decay rapidly and are not available later when the suggestive questions are asked.

• Children are unable to reject erroneous information.• Source monitoring: being aware of the source of info

one knows or remembers.


• Young children often have difficulty monitoring the source of their memories.

• They often have difficulty determining whether they performed an act or just imagined it.

• They often attribute actions done by others to themselves (Foley et al., 1993).

• Six-year-olds who are poor at source monitoring are more prone to the effects of suggestion.

False Memory Creation

• How easy is it to get children to believe events that did not happen?

• Ceci et al. (1994) interviewed 3- and 6-year-old children over an 11-week period about events that might have happened to them.

• Few children admitted experiencing these events early in the study, but this increased throughout the study.– This was especially the case of for young children.

Documents

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 1 PSYCHOLOGY 3050: Memory Development (Ch 8) Dr. Jamie Drover SN-3094, 864-8383 e-mail -- [email protected] Winter Semester, 2015