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The development of adaptive memory: Young children show enhanced retention of animacy-related information

  • Previous developmental work has indicated that animacy is a foundational ontogenetic category that is given priority already early in life. Here, we investigated whether such priority is also present in children’s episodic memory, examining whether young children show enhanced retention of animacy-related information. Kindergartners and younger and older elementary school children were presented with fictitious (non)words (e.g., BULA, LAFE) paired with properties characteristic of humans (e.g., “likes music”), (nonhuman) animals (e.g., “builds nests”), and inanimate things (e.g., “has four edges”) and were asked to rate the animacy status of each nonword. After a retention interval, a surprise recognition test for the nonwords was administered. We found enhanced recognition of nonwords paired with human and animal properties compared with (the same) nonwords paired with inanimate properties. The size of this animacy advantage was comparable across age groups, suggesting developmental invariance of the advantage over the age range examined (i.e., 4–11 years). The results support a functional–evolutionary view on memory, suggesting that already young children’s memory is “tuned” to process and retain animacy.

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Metadaten
Author:Alp AslanORCiD, Thomas John
URL:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2016.07.007
Parent Title (English):Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
Document Type:Article (peer reviewed)
Language:English
Publication Year:2016
Tag:Adaptive memory; Ancestral priorities; Cognitive development; Episodic memory; Evolutionary psychology; Mnemonic animacy advantage in children
Volume:152
First Page:343
Last Page:350
Peer reviewed:Ja