Download Memory development -1

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