TY - JOUR A1 - Aslan, Alp A1 - Staudigl, Tobias A1 - Samenieh, Anuscheh A1 - Bäuml, Karl-Heinz T. T1 - Directed forgetting in young children: Evidence for a production deficiency JF - Psychonomic Bulletin & Review N2 - When people are cued to forget a previously studied list of items and to learn a new list instead, such cuing typically leads to forgetting of the first list and to memory enhancement of the second. In two experiments, we examined such listwise directed forgetting in children (and adults), using a forget cue that placed either high emphasis or low emphasis on the need to forget. In the low-emphasis condition, (adult-like) List 1 forgetting was present in fourth graders, but not in first graders (and kindergartners); in contrast, in the high-emphasis condition, (adult-like) List 1 forgetting was present from first grade on. Only fourth graders showed (adult-like) List 2 enhancement, regardless of task instruction. The finding that first graders showed List 1 forgetting only in the high-emphasis condition points to a production deficiency in first graders’ directed forgetting, suggesting that the children are capable of intentional forgetting but fail to do so spontaneously. The finding that first graders showed List 1 forgetting without List 2 enhancement suggests that the two directed-forgetting effects are mediated by different processes with different developmental trajectories. KW - Fourth Grader KW - Task Instruction KW - High Emphasis KW - Retrieval Inhibition KW - Production Deficiency Y1 - 2021 UR - https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.6.784 VL - 17 IS - 6 SP - 784 EP - 789 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Aslan, Alp A1 - Samenieh, Anuscheh A1 - Staudigl, Tobias A1 - Bäuml, Karl-Heinz T. T1 - Memorial Consequences of Environmental Context Change in Children and Adults JF - Experimental Psychology N2 - Changing environmental context during encoding can influence episodic memory. This study examined the memorial consequences of environmental context change in children. Kindergartners, first and fourth graders, and young adults studied two lists of items, either in the same room (no context change) or in two different rooms (context change), and subsequently were tested on the two lists in the room in which the second list was encoded. As expected, in adults, the context change impaired recall of the first list and improved recall of the second. Whereas fourth graders showed the same pattern of results as adults, in both kindergartners and first graders no memorial effects of the context change arose. The results indicate that the two effects of environmental context change develop contemporaneously over middle childhood and reach maturity at the end of the elementary school days. The findings are discussed in light of both retrieval-based and encoding-based accounts of context-dependent memory. KW - episodic memory KW - context-dependent memory KW - environmental context change KW - memory development KW - cognitive development Y1 - 2021 UR - https://doi.org/10.1027/1618-3169/a000056 VL - 57 IS - 6 SP - 455 EP - 461 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Aslan, Alp A1 - Bäuml, Karl-Heinz T. T1 - Retrieval-induced forgetting in young children JF - Psychonomic Bulletin & Review N2 - A prominent theory of cognitive development attributes the poor performance that children show in many cognitive tasks to a general lack of inhibitory control. We tested this theory by examining children’s inhibitory capabilities in retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF), a memory task in which selective retrieval of previously studied material causes forgetting of related, nonretrieved material. Such forgetting is often attributed to inhibitory control processes, which supposedly suppress the nonretrieved items’ memory representation. We examined RIF in kindergartners, second graders, and adults, using both recall and recognition testing. Although all three age groups showed significant RIF in recall, only adults and second graders, but not kindergartners, showed RIF in recognition. Because inhibition-based RIF should be present in recall and recognition, these findings indicate that in adults and second graders, but not in kindergartners, RIF is mediated by inhibition. The results support the view of inefficient inhibitory processes in young children’s cognition. KW - False Alarm Rate KW - Retrieval Practice KW - Item Recognition KW - Unpracticed Item KW - Final Recall Test Y1 - 2021 UR - https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.5.704 VL - 17 IS - 5 SP - 704 EP - 709 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Aslan, Alp A1 - Zellner, Martina A1 - Bäuml, Karl-Heinz T. T1 - Working memory capacity predicts listwise directed forgetting in adults and children JF - Memory N2 - In listwise directed forgetting, participants are cued to forget previously studied material and to learn new material instead. Such cueing typically leads to forgetting of the first set of material and to memory enhancement of the second. The present study examined the role of working memory capacity in adults' and children's listwise directed forgetting. Working memory capacity was assessed with complex span tasks. In Experiment 1 working memory capacity predicted young adults' directed-forgetting performance, demonstrating a positive relationship between working memory capacity and each of the two directed-forgetting effects. In Experiment 2 we replicated the finding with a sample of first and a sample of fourth-grade children, and additionally showed that working memory capacity can account for age-related increases in directed-forgetting efficiency between the two age groups. Following the view that directed forgetting is mediated by inhibition of the first encoded list, the results support the proposal of a close link between working memory capacity and inhibitory function. KW - Episodic memory KW - Directed forgetting KW - Individual differences KW - Working memory capacity KW - Inhibition KW - Cognitive development Y1 - 2021 UR - https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211003742698 VL - 18 IS - 4 SP - 442 EP - 450 ER -