HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 1 PSYCHOLOGY 3050: Memory Development 1 (Ch10)

1. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 1 PSYCHOLOGY 3050: Memory Development 1 (Ch10) Dr. Jamie Drover SN-3094, 864-8383 e-mail -- jrdrover@mun.ca Fall Semester, 2011

2. 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.

3. Representation of Knowledge • 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

4. Representation of Knowledge • 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

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. Memory Development in Infancy: Conjugate Reinforcement Procedure • Rovee-Collier (1999) tied a ribbon to an infant’s ankle and connected it to a mobile.

8. Memory Development in Infancy: Conjugate Reinforcement Procedure • 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.

9. Memory Development in Infancy: Conjugate Reinforcement Procedure • 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?

10. Memory Development in Infancy: Conjugate Reinforcement Procedure • 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.

11. Memory Development in Infancy: Conjugate Reinforcement Procedure • 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.

12. How Long Do Infants’ Memories Last? • Infants’ memories last longer with age.

13. 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)

14. How Long Do Infants’ Memories Last? • 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.

15. How Long Do Infants’ Memories Last? • 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.

16. 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.

17. Why Can’t We Remember Early Events? • Two explanations. • Information is not stored for long-term retention before 2 years of age. • 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.

18. Why Can’t We Remember Early Events? • 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.

19. Why Can’t We Remember Early Events?

20. Why Can’t We Remember Early Events? • 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.

21. Why Can’t We Remember Early Events? • 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.

22. 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.

23. Implicit Memory • 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.

24. Implicit Memory • There appear to be few age differences on implicit memory. • Researchers test this using fragmented pictures that the child has to identify.

25. 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.

27. 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.

28. 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.

29. 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.

30. 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.

31. 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.

32. 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.

33. 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.

34. 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.

35. 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.

36. How Much do They Remember, and How Accurate are They? • False memories can not be based on verbatim information; it is based on gist and is, therefore, resistant to forgetting.

37. 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.

38. 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.

39. 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.

40. Factors Influencing Children’s Eyewitness Memory • 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.

41. Factors Influencing Children’s Eyewitness Memory • 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.

42. Factors Influencing Children’s Eyewitness Memory • 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.

43. Factors Influencing Children’s Eyewitness Memory • 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.

44. Factors Influencing Children’s Eyewitness Memory • 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.

45. 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.

46. 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.

47. How Do Children Respond to Misleading Questions? • 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.

48. How Do Children Respond to Misleading Questions? • 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.

49. How Do Children Respond to Misleading Questions? • 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.

50. How Do Children Respond to Misleading Questions? • 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.