Refine
Document Type
Language
- English (4) (remove)
Has Fulltext
- no (4)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (4)
Keywords
- Cognitive development (4) (remove)
Institute
Previous work has indicated that testing can enhance memory for subsequently studied new information by reducing proactive interference from previously studied information. Here, we examined this forward testing effect in children’s spatial memory. Kindergartners (5–6 years) and younger (7–8 years) and older (9–10 years) elementary school children studied four successively presented 3 x 3 arrays, each composed of the same 9 objects. The children were asked to memorize the locations of the objects that differed across the four arrays. Following presentation of each of the first three arrays, memory for the object locations of the respective array was tested (testing condition) or the array was re-presented for additional study (restudy condition). Results
revealed that testing Arrays 1 to 3 enhanced children’s object location memory for Array 4 relative to restudying. Moreover, children in the testing condition were less likely to confuse Array 4 locations with previous locations, suggesting that testing reduces the buildup of proactive interference. Both effects were found regardless of age. Thus, the current findings indicate that testing is an effective means to resolve proactive interference and, in this way, to enhance children’s learning and remembering of spatial information even before the time of school entry.
Providing a subset of previously studied items as a retrieval cue can both impair and improve recall of the remaining items. Here, we investigated the development of these two opposing effects of such part-list cuing in children. Using listwise directed forgetting to manipulate study context access, three child age groups (7–8, 9–11, and 13–14 years) and young adults studied a list of items and, after study, were asked to either forget or continue remembering the list. After presentation of a second list, participants were tested on predefined target items from the original list in either the presence or absence of the list’s remaining (nontarget) items serving as retrieval cues. Results revealed that part-list cuing impaired recall of to-be-remembered target items regardless of age. In contrast, part-list cuing improved recall of to-be-forgotten target items in the adult and the oldest child groups but not in the two younger child groups. This finding suggests a developmental dissociation between the two opposing effects of part-list cuing, indicating that the beneficial effect develops later than the detrimental effect. In particular, following the view that the beneficial effect of part-list cuing arises from reactivation of the study context, the results suggest that elementary school children have difficulty in capitalizing on context reactivation.
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.
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.