ECE 353 Cognitive Development of Infants & Young Children / week 2 assignment/ how the brain learn

What is Special Education? 1

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Pre-Test

1. 1. You can use the terms disability and handicap interchangeably. T/F 2. 2. The history of special education began in Europe. T/F 3. 3. The first American legislation that protected students with disabilities was passed in the 1950s.

T/F 4. 4. All students with disabilities should be educated in special education classrooms. T/F 5. 5. Special education law is constantly reinterpreted. T/F

6. Answers can be found at the end of the chapter.

4 Memory Development

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Learning Objectives By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

• Identify the different types of memory from an information-processing perspective.

• Describe the nature and development of memory during infancy.

• Analyze the roles of capacity, knowledge, strategies, and metamemory in memory development.

• Trace the relationship between brain development and memory.

• Explain the emergence of autobiographical memory and the end of childhood amnesia.

• Evaluate whether children are credible eyewitnesses in legal proceedings.

Pretest Questions

Pretest Questions

1. Once information is stored in long-term memory, it can be permanent. T/F 2. Infants are able to remember some of their previous experiences. T/F 3. Age-related improvements in memory performance are due primarily to increases in

memory capacity or size of memory storage. T/F 4. Most adults’ earliest childhood memory is for an event that occurred around age 4. T/F 5. It is easy to implant a false memory in children from age 3 to 5 years; thus, they should

not be allowed to testify in court. T/F

Mr. Lee’s second-grade class was learning many facts and skills such as writing, spelling, and vocabulary. As part of a spelling lesson, Lee was teaching several words and their meanings. His students were having a difficult time memorizing the words in addition to their correct spelling and definition. Lee wondered whether introducing some memory strategies would help his students recall the words. He remembered from his cognitive psychology course that there are a number of possible strategies that can facilitate memory recall. Two such strategies are rehearsal and categorical organization, or chunking. It did not appear children were using any of these strategies spontaneously. Lee was uncertain if second-grade children could even be taught to employ these types of strategies, but he decided it was worth a try.

First, Lee explained to his students the importance of using memory techniques and the process involved. Using a picture of the brain, he explained that consolidation takes place when infor- mation from short-term or working memory is transferred into long-term memory for later use. His students thought he was funny when he said, “What’s the point in learning something if we can’t remember it later on!” He decided to make learning fun and engaging by splitting the class into two groups—those who would practice rehearsal and those who would practice categorical organization. The groups would switch so that all students were able to learn and apply both memory techniques.

After he split the class into two groups, he gave the rehearsal group a list of spelling words that included spring, second, fall, joyful, minute, grateful, summer, kindness, and hour. He told the group to repeat the words in the list as they were presented and then write them down several times. He also asked them to pair up and repeat the list of words to their partner several times. In order to increase retention, he suggested that the group use elaborative rehearsal to make the words more meaningful to them. For example, he asked each student to come up with a personal example to connect the word with a feeling or experience; for instance, one student might con- nect the word summer with swimming and having fun, and fall with school and cold weather. Making personal associations with information increases material’s meaning and therefore improves retention.

The other memory strategy Lee wanted to use was categorical organization, or chunking. This strategy requires students to take different types of words and categorize them into meaningful and related “chunks.” Lee had the other group of students create categories for the same list of words; they came up with time, seasons, and feelings. Once the words were chunked into these categories, students were able to more efficiently remember the words under each category. Children (and adults) will often chunk material based on its semantic relatedness, which is more

Introduction

meaningful. Teaching children to organize material by categories helps students remember information in groups, as opposed to each piece of information separately.

Lee was quite surprised that after several minutes of practicing these techniques, his students were much more engaged in the lesson and were able to remember the words better—they even had fun doing it!

Questions to Think About

1. What type of memory strategies might be effective for children in higher grades? Can you think of different strategies that might be successful?

2. Mr. Lee did not believe his second graders were naturally using these strategies. What type of behavior might indicate that children are in fact strategic in learning words and definitions?

3. What types of cognitive skills would children need to be able to effectively use a memory strategy?

4. Take a moment to reflect on your own experience using memory strategies. What memory strategy did you use (or currently use) to learn and retain new information?

Introduction Memory is an incredible cognitive process that is critical for almost all human abilities. Mem- ory enables us to recognize a familiar face from years ago, ride a bike, find our way home, and much more. We can also quickly sort through our memory to recall information on the spot. If asked the capital of Paraguay, for example, you would likely know immediately if you knew the answer. Considering the amount of information stored in our memories, this is an impres- sive ability. Memories also allow us to establish a personal identity based on our life story. What is your earliest memory? Why is it that adults have such a difficult time remembering experiences from their early childhood? These are questions regarding autobiographical memories, or memories about the self. These memories are fundamental to our identity.

Memory development is foundational to children’s cognitive development and education. In order for children to engage in any cognitive or educational activity, they need to store, process, and retrieve information from their memory. This chapter will explore the develop- ment of different types of memory primarily from an IP approach. Our discussion will include working memory, short-term memory, and many different forms of long-term memory. In addition, social constructivist approaches to autobiographical memory will be considered in the discussion of autobiographical memories. The study of memory development is not a fre- quently researched topic from Piagetian and nativist perspectives, so these perspectives will not be considered in this chapter (although see Howes & O’Shea, 2014).

Core Themes and Memory The majority of memory-development research is conducted from an IP perspective. The core developmental themes regarding memory are consistent with this perspective. Although memory processes and stores may be basic biological capabilities (nature), the development of memory is influenced by experiences such as school, family, and friends (nurture). Mem- ory development is generally characterized as reflecting continuous improvement, such as

Section 4.1Information-Processing Memory Models

increases in working memory, as opposed to discontinuous improvement. Research focuses on children’s memory performance, such as how much they recall, rather than their competence.

Memory is generally characterized as involving domain-general processes rather than domain-specific processes. That is, regardless of what material is remembered, in most cases the basic processes for retaining memory are the same. (One exception may be memory for faces, which some research has shown might be domain specific; see James, Arcurio, & Gold, 2013). Similar to the IP perspective on memory, the social constructive perspective takes a domain-general perspective on the social construction of some memories, particularly auto- biographical ones (Fivush, Reese, & Haden, 2006).

4.1 Information-Processing Memory Models Memory is involved in all aspects of our cognitive and social life. It allows us to remember our experiences and to recognize the voice of a long-lost friend. It also permits us to do mental arithmetic, recall information for a test, or remember a phone number long enough to place a call. All these different functions of memory require different memory systems.

In Chapter 1 we introduced the IP approach to cognitive development. This perspective tracks the flow of information through the brain using a computer analogy. Central to this approach are the different types of memory for storing information. As information such as visual input or sound is received from the environment through our sensory systems, it is initially held in sensory memory, which is very brief in duration (less than a second).

This information is next transferred to short-term memory. Short-term memory has a lim- ited capacity and duration. If children are presented a random sequence of digits to remember, such as 8, 3, 7, 2, 4, the number of digits they can recall is a reflection of their short-term mem- ory. Short-term memory increases until adulthood (Halford, 1994; Ottem, Lian, & Karlsen, 2007). At around age 5, the average digit span is about five items, which by age 12 increases to about six items. The average adult has a short-term memory span of around seven items. The duration of short-term memory is about 30 seconds, although it can be affected by per- formance demands (Rattat & Picard, 2012).

Closely related to short-term memory is working memory, introduced in Chapter 3. Although these terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there are differences (see Andin et al., 2013; Cowan, 2014). Short-term memory is primarily used for temporary storage, and work- ing memory is a temporary storage where encoded information is worked on or processed to accomplish some cognitive task, such as mentally adding numbers. As described further in Chapter 3, working memory comprises both the phonological loop for verbal information and the visuospatial sketch pad for visual information.

Working memory varies considerably among children. As pointed out in Chapter 3, differ- ences in working-memory capacity are associated with different cognitive outcomes, par- ticularly in an academic setting. This is especially the case with learning to read (Gathercole, Alloway, Willis, & Adams, 2006). Children who have low working memory have difficulty remembering what they read. This causes them to reread the same material again and again. In a study of more than 3,000 children ages 5 to 11, about 10% were identified as having

Section 4.1Information-Processing Memory Models

low working-memory scores. These children not only had difficulty with verbal ability and learning, but also had attention problems. They were distractible, inattentive, and had diffi- culties assessing their schoolwork (Alloway, Gathercole, Kirkwood, & Elliott, 2009). Working memory also has been associated with mathematical achievement (Toll & Van Luit, 2013).

Once information is in short-term or working memory, it can be transferred to long-term memory. Long-term memory is the central memory store of long-lasting memories. It has essentially unlimited capacity and can last decades; many long-term memories may be per- manent. Transfer of information from working memory to long-term memory is more likely to occur if children engage in some strategic activity, such as rehearsing or repeating the information to be remembered.

Long-term memory can be divided into several subtypes. The top of the hierarchy consists of explicit and implicit memory. An explicit memory is consciously available and involve memo- ries for both semantic and episodic information. Semantic memory is a subtype of explicit memory and is general knowledge not tied to a specific event. It includes information such as the meaning of words, capitals of states, and all types of general information. Semantic memory also includes scripts, which are generalized knowledge structures regarding famil- iar events, such as making a cake or going to the beach.

Although you may remember the chemical formula for water (a semantic memory), you are less likely to remember exactly when you learned it (an episodic memory). Episodic memory involves memories for particular events, such as your high school graduation or the end of a significant relationship. Episodic memories such as these that are personally meaningful are autobiographical memories. Episodic memories also include less significant memories, such as remembering what you had for lunch yesterday. The latter insignificant memories may not remain in long-term storage for very long.

Flashbulb memories are also a type of episodic memory. This involves remembering the details of where you were when a highly salient historical event or personally significant event occurred (Schmidt, 2012). For instance, you might remember many details from the day of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, such as where you were, what you were doing, and who you were with when you heard the news.

Implicit memory is the other type of long-term memory; it is memory without conscious awareness. These memories are not consciously available for recall and are sometimes referred to as procedural memories. There are several types of implicit memory (Lloyd & Miller, 2014). The first are motor skills, like playing piano or riding a bike. The second type of implicit memories involves classical and operant conditioning.

Classical conditioning occurs when a neutral stimulus (one that elicits no automatic response) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (one that does elicit a natural response). After repeated presentations of the two paired stimuli, the neutral stimulus begins to evoke the same response as the unconditioned stimulus. When this occurs, the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus. For example, you might have noticed that you automatically feel hungry whenever you smell cookies baking (an unconditioned stimulus). It is unlikely that the sound of a phone ringing (a neutral stimulus) produces the same response for you. However, if every time you smelled cookies in the oven a phone rang, eventually you might begin to feel hungry simply from hearing the ring (now a conditioned stimulus), regardless of whether cookies were present.

Section 4.1Information-Processing Memory Models

Operant conditioning involves reinforcing or punishing a spontaneously produced behavior to increase or decrease its probability of occurring again, respectively. If every time a child makes the sound “ma” the parent becomes excited and pays attention to the child, he or she is likely to continue to make the sound and eventually say “mama.”

Priming is the third type of implicit memory and occurs when a stimulus previously pre- sented enhances processing of it when the same stimulus is presented again (Turati, 2008). For instance, identifying a picture previously seen occurs more quickly than for an unfamiliar picture (Tulving & Schacter, 1990). If identification is faster on the second presentation, it implies that there is an implicit memory of the original picture.

Memory is involved in each of these examples because they require remembering the asso- ciation between the preceding event (stimulus) and the behavior. However, they are implicit because the associations occur automatically and are not consciously available. Figure 4.1 illustrates the hierarchical relationships between these different types of memory. Their development will be discussed in subsequent sections of the chapter.

Figure 4.1: Relationships between different types of memory

Memory is not one simple process; it is made up of various types and subtypes. Different aspects of memory allow people to perform activities ranging from memorizing numbers to recalling events from their past.

Priming Procedural

memory

Classical and operant

conditioning

Semantic memory

General memory

Scripts Autobio- graphical memory

Flashbulb memory

Episodic memory

Types of memory

Sensory memory Long-term memory

Implicit memory Explicit memory

Short-term memory

(Working memory)

To reflect the storing and transfer of information from the different memory types, three phases of memory formation have been identified (Bauer & Fivush, 2014). Encoding refers to attending to the stimulus to be remembered. In order to remember something, it has to be noticed. For instance, if the goal is to remember state capitals, both the states and the capitals

Section 4.2Infant Memory

must be noted. If attention is only focused on capitals but not the states, learning is limited. Consolidation is the process of stabilizing and integrating the informa- tion into long-term memory. Initially, memories may be fragile, but the more effort that is expended in memo- rizing the information, the more stable the memory. Once information is stored, it will need to be recalled to be useful. Retrieval is the process of recalling the infor- mation in memory (Bauer & Fivush, 2014), which is quite helpful during exam time.

4.2 Infant Memory One of the many fascinating aspects of memory is the absence of adults’ memory for their experiences during infancy and early childhood. The absence of these early memories is known as infantile or childhood amnesia. We will discuss this when addressing the issue of autobiographical memory development. However, we begin by considering whether children have memories while they are infants and toddlers. Until fairly recently it was believed that infants could not remember specific events because of an inability to symbolically represent the world (Bauer, 2004), though we now know this is not true (Lukowski & Bauer, 2014).

As discussed in Chapter 2 on infant physical cognition, the challenge of studying infant cogni- tion is that infants are nonverbal. They cannot directly tell us what they remember, so research- ers must use indirect methods to study their memory. Before considering these methods, we need to first make a distinction between recall memory and recognition memory. Recall memory is retrieving information that was previously stored in long-term memory. This dis- tinction is easily illustrated by comparing different types of exam questions. To answer an essay question, it is necessary to retrieve previously studied information from memory. Rec- ognition memory is linking or associating an event or object with one previously encoun- tered. To answer a multiple-choice question, the possible correct choices are compared with previously learned memory.

Infant Implicit Memory As adults, we do not remember our experiences during the first year of life. However, this does not mean that infants do not have memories of their experiences. Implicit memory emerges first in infancy, followed later by explicit memory (Bauer, 2004). Operant conditioning pro- cedures are used to study infant recognition memory. Infants in one study had a ribbon tied to their ankle, which was then connected to the mobile above them. As the infant kicked, the mobile moved, which the infants seemed to find reinforcing, because they continued to kick to make the mobile move (Rovee-Collier, 1987; Rovee-Collier & Cuevas, 2009).

To study how long memories for the mobile persisted, infant kicking responses to the training mobile were compared after delays of 1 day, 1 week, or 1 month. Two-month-old infants can only recognize the training mobile for 1 to 2 days. By age 6 months, memory for the mobile can last as long as 3 weeks. If the mobile’s appearance was changed, however slightly, infants did not kick, indicating they recognized the original stimulus (Rovee-Collier & Shyi, 1992).

Questions to Consider

1. Imagine teaching a third-grader how to multiply numbers. What memory stores must children use to successfully solve the problem?

2. How are the various forms of long-term memory related to different types of educational attainment? For instance, what roles do episodic and semantic memory play in learning?

Section 4.2Infant Memory

The habituation procedure (described in detail in Chapter 2) is another use- ful technique for assessing infant rec- ognition memory, which is an implicit memory. In this procedure infants are shown a picture, such as a human face. When a different face is pre- sented, they will look longer at it. When the familiar face is displayed again, they will continue to habituate and not look at it very long (Flom & Bahrick, 2010). The fact that infants look longer at a novel face suggests that they recognize or remember the original face. Two-month-old infants take several minutes to habituate to a novel stimulus. By age 4 to 5 months, it may take only 10 seconds. Infants can recognize a wide variety of stim- uli, including faces and sounds (Oakes & Kovack-Lesh, 2013).

There is an interesting twist to this description. Whether infants show greater interest in the familiar or unfamiliar picture depends on the amount of time between initial presentation and the novel stimulus (Richmond, Colombo, & Hayne, 2007). If the time is brief, then infants (and adults) prefer the novel stimulus. If the delay is long, infants (and adults) prefer the familiar stimulus (Courage & Howe, 2001). This might make more sense if you imagine returning to a familiar place you have not visited for years, such as your elementary school. You would be likely to spend more time looking at the things you recognized than at any changes.

Infant Explicit Memory Explicit memory is more difficult than implicit memory to measure in infants, since they have to “report” that they are remembering something without doing so verbally (Bauer & Fivush, 2014). That is, they have to indicate that they recall a prior experience by their behavior. It is not clear they are consciously aware of their recall. Deferred imitation can be used to demonstrate explicit recall memory. This occurs when infants observe a model engaging in an action and then repeat the action after some delay. Piaget argued that infants cannot engage in deferred imitation until they have representational abilities in the preoperational stage. Recent work suggests that this is not accurate (Bauer & Fivush, 2014).

A very effective deferred-imitation task has been to demonstrate a sequence of actions such as building a toy rattle (Bauer, Larkina, & Deocampo, 2011). As shown in Figure 4.2, the actions for constructing a rattle are putting a ball in a cup, placing the top on the cup, and then shak- ing the rattle. For this particular task the actions have to be performed in a certain sequence to be successful, because of the causal relationships between the actions. After a delay, the infants are given the props, and their task is to recall the actions. Other tasks involve temporal relationships between actions that have no causal connections. For example, infants can be

Cusp/Superstock A ribbon connecting an infant’s ankle to a mobile causes the mobile to move when she kicks. Researchers have found 2-month-old infants can learn to move the mobile by kicking and that they remember the mobile after 1 or 2 days have elapsed.

Section 4.2Infant Memory

asked to make a clown by following a sequence of steps. Unlike the rattle, the steps in creating the clown do not have to be followed sequentially for the final product to function. Thus, the task focuses only on recall of the actions specified, not the infant’s understanding of causal relationships.

Figure 4.2: Deferred-imitation task for making a rattle

In this deferred imitation task, children watch an adult complete a sequence of actions to build a rattle. This type of task is used to measure explicit memory in infancy and early childhood.

Deferred-imitation tasks have been used with infants as young as age 6 months. After a 24-hour delay, most of the 6-month-old infants were able to recall one action when they were presented with the props (Barr, Dowden, & Hayne, 1996). There was significant improvement by age 9 months, with many infants able to recall a temporal sequence 5 weeks later (Carver & Bauer, 1999). During the second year of life, there is more improvement in recall memory for these event sequences. In a large-scale study of 13-, 16-, and 20-month-old infants, even some of the youngest infants in the study were able to recall the temporal sequences after a year (Bauer, Wenner, Dropik, & Wewerka, 2000).

What determines how long these early memories persist? Researchers have shown that how well the memory is consolidated affects the length of time the memory lasts. As described earlier, consolidation refers to the process of integrating unstable memories into long-term memory. It is based on the effort involved in establishing the memory. In a study of 20-month- olds learning event sequences such as making a rattle, children were assigned to one of three encoding conditions: watch, imitate, or “learn to criterion” (the latter involved, for example, reproducing the complete sequence two times in succession). Each condition increased the opportunity to consolidate the memory.

There were no differences in recall immediately follow- ing encoding across the three conditions. However, those children in the imitation and learn to criterion conditions recalled more 1, 2, and 3 weeks later than the infants in the watch condition, likely because their memories had become more consolidated in the imita- tion and learn to criterion conditions. There were no recall differences in these latter two conditions (Bauer, Güler, Starr, & Pathman, 2011).

Question to Consider

How could you apply these findings regarding the consolidation of memory in infancy to consolidating memory in a classroom setting?

Section 4.3Influences on Explicit Memory Development

4.3 Influences on Explicit Memory Development Academic success, whether in preschool or college, is dependent on memory. How well infor- mation is encoded, consolidated, and retrieved determines performance on many types of academic assessments. Most of the memories established as you study a text are explicit memories.

Beginning in the second year, explicit memories begin to emerge and improve throughout childhood and adolescence. In a standard explicit memory task appropriate for children start- ing around age 3, children are presented with a set of stimuli (such as pictures) to memorize. As expected, older children typically recall more pictures than younger children (Jarrod & Hall, 2013). Researchers have identified four primary contributors to improvements in children’s memory performance. These include increases in capacity, the development of memory strat- egies, knowledge of specific domains, and metamemory. In most cases these factors enhance long-term memory by contributing to the transfer of information from short-term or working memory to long-term memory (Bebko, McMorris, Metcalfe, Ricciuti, & Goldstein, 2014).

Capacity in Memory Development Most of us have had the experience of trying to save digital information to a flash drive and receiving the message that its capacity has been reached. To add more information, old infor- mation has to be deleted. Does human memory have similar capacity limits? How much infor- mation can be stored in human memory? Is it unlimited?

As children age, memory capacity increases, or at least, the amount of information recalled increases. Capacity is defined as the amount of information that can be kept in the different memory stores (short-term memory, working memory, and long-term memory). It also can include the length of time that memory persists. Studies of short-term memory, as assessed by recalling a list of numbers, indicate that 3-year-olds can repeat back about two num- bers, but by age 8 it is about five numbers (Cowan, 2014; Gathercole, 1999). In Chapter 3 we described the increase of working memory across childhood using a digit-span test. Other measures include backward digit span and word spans. In these tasks, children must repeat a series of words or numbers in the reverse order that they heard them. The capacity of long- term memory is very large and for all practical purposes is unlimited. Information can clearly be forgotten, though, and several explanations of why forgetting occurs have been proposed (Hardt, Karim, & Nadel, 2013).

Assessing and interpreting developmental increases in memory capacity is difficult. It is not possible to directly measure memory capacity. It is not as straightforward as measuring the capacity of a bucket; memory capacity is different because it is influenced by numerous cog- nitive skills that are also developing along with it (Cowan, Ricker, Clark, Hinrichs, & Glass, 2014). For instance, knowledge also increases with development. Perhaps the increase in capacity reflects changes in knowledge. In one study that examined this question, English- speaking children age 6 to 12 years, as well as college students, were asked to recall either English letters or unfamiliar characters after a brief 1-second presentation of each stimulus. Memory capacity improved dramatically with development for the familiar English letters, whereas for unfamiliar characters, the age improvement was slower, as shown in Figure 4.3. These findings indicate that increases in knowledge contribute to memory, discussed in more depth later (Cowan et al., 2014).

Section 4.3Influences on Explicit Memory Development

Figure 4.3: Working memory for letters versus unfamiliar characters

Across all ages studied, children and college students were able to retain more familiar letters than unfamiliar characters in their working memory. Working memory for both sets of characters increased with age, but this increase was greater for the familiar letters.

5.0

4.5

4.0

3.5

3.0

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0 1–2 3–4 5–7 College

Grade Level in School

It e

m s in

w o

rk in

g m

e m

o ry

( k

)

English letters

Unfamiliar characters

Source: Cowan, N., Ricker, T. J., Clark, K. M., Hinrichs, G. A., & Glass, B. A. (2014). Knowledge cannot explain the developmental growth of working memory capacity. Developmental Science, 18(1), 132–145. Reprinted with permission.

Strategies in Memory Development When studying for an exam, what methods have you used to improve your memory of the material? Which methods were effective and which were not? Behaviors like these that assist in remembering information are known as memory strategies, and we begin to use them in childhood. They are typically intentional behaviors performed either when information is presented at the time of encoding or at the time of retrieval (Baker-Ward, Ornstein, & Holden, 1984; Flavell, Beach, & Chinksy, 1966). Although young children age 2 to 5 rarely employ more sophisticated memory strategies, they can engage in simpler ones. If asked to remem- ber the location of an object hidden in one of two boxes for a short time, 2-year-olds may point to it, name it, or stare at the location to help themselves remember (DeLoache, Cassidy, & Brown, 1985).

Intentional strategy use becomes more common once children enter elementary school, where remembering information becomes more critical to school success (Bebko et al., 2014; Flavell, 1970). Typically, 6- and 7-year-olds begin to use various memory strategies to help them remember. By age 12 strategy use is well developed, although increases in effectiveness can continue through adolescence (Roebers, 2014).

Section 4.3Influences on Explicit Memory Development

One encoding strategy is rehearsal, which consists of repeating the information in working memory so it can be recalled later from long-term memory (Gathercole, 1998). This strat- egy generally develops around age 7 (Jarrold & Hall, 2014). If children are asked to remem- ber a list of words presented one at a time, rehearsal involves repeating the words as they are presented. If provided a list such as cat, bed, red, car, and apple, 7-year-olds might only rehearse one word at a time as each word is presented (for example, cat, cat, cat). Older chil- dren, around age 10, are more likely to exhibit cumulative rehearsal. This occurs when chil- dren repeat several words at a time and update the list by dropping the earlier words as new words are added (for example, cat, bed, red, then bed, red, car). As more words are presented, children’s ability to maintain all of the words in working memory is limited (Schneider, 2011).

A more sophisticated strategy is categorical organization, which emerges around age 10. Categorical organization occurs when information is placed into semantically relevant cat- egories characterized by similar meanings. For example, when needing to remember a gro- cery list, one might separate items into categories such as snacks, vegetables, and so on. This strategy can facilitate retrieval of the items to be bought by recalling the different categories. Items that are grouped together by category are associated by similarity, which facilitates recall (Schneider, Kron, Hünnerkopf & Krajewski, 2004). Alternatively, of course, you could just write them down—also an effective memory strategy.

Elaboration involves creating a richer memory representation during encoding. In trying to remember a person’s name, it can help to create a mental image based on their name. To remember a person whose last name is Houseman, an individual may create a mental image of a man sitting on top of a house. If memorizing the countries of South America, a student might create a memorable sentence in which the first letter of each word corresponds to the first letter of each country’s name. If you have ever learned to read music, you might remem- ber the sentence for recalling the treble clef notes: Every good boy does fine (or the version more popular with some children, Every good boy deserves fudge). This is another example of an elaboration strategy. Elaboration strategies have been shown to benefit vocabulary as well (Pressley, Levin, & Ghatala, 1984).

Other strategies useful for remembering text materials are text strategies, such as highlight- ing passages and summarizing the main points, as you are likely doing as you read this text- book. Table 4.1 illustrates the general pattern of strategy development.

Table 4.1: Strategy development in childhood and adolescence

Strategy type Age of emergence Definition

Rehearsal 6 to 8 years Repeating items to be recalled

Categorical organization

9 to 10 years Placing items into similar categories

Elaboration 11 to 13 years Creating richer associations or images of material to recall

Text strategies 13 and older Summarizing, highlighting, keywords, and other strategies used to remember written material

As a general rule, strategy use is associated with better memory, and this relationship is strongest among children age 10 and older (Bjorklund & Douglas, 1997). Though children

Section 4.3Influences on Explicit Memory Development

younger than 6 or 7 typically do not spontaneously use these strategies, they can be trained to do so (Bjorklund, Miller, Coyle, & Slawinski, 1997). However, there are often limitations in the effectiveness of strategy use for children of this age. Children may not execute the strategy very well, or they may fail to use it spontaneously, even when it can be shown to benefit recall (Clerc & Miller, 2013).

As children are acquiring a strategy, the relationship between strategy use and recall is weaker or not present (Schwenck, Bjorklund, & Schneider, 2007). This limitation during strategy development is often due to a utilization deficiency (Clerc & Miller, 2013). This deficiency occurs when children are spontaneously using the strategy, but it does not benefit their recall. It is also exhibited when children are prompted to use a strategy by an adult without it help- ing their recall (Schwenck et al., 2007).

One explanation for why children younger than age 6 do not consistently use strategies, even after training, is that it takes mental effort or cognitive load to execute a strategy, such as rehearsal, when it is being acquired (Clerc & Miller, 2013). For example, using a strategy such as rehearsal takes deliberate effort; one must repeat and update the items being rehearsed. Thus, so much effort is being expended on the strategy that it does not benefit recall. On the other hand, when adults execute the strategy for children, repeating the information aloud to them, children remember more because it reduces the child’s cognitive load, such as work- ing memory (DeMarie-Dreblow & Miller, 1988; Schneider et al., 2004). Additionally, the new strategy may interfere with less effective strategies that the child is using already. Children also may not recognize the benefit of using a strategy (Cleric & Miller, 2013).

When they do employ a strategy such as rehearsal, they may not do so effectively. In a memory task that involves recalling a series of pictures, children may use rehearsal as they are exposed to each picture. Children age 10 and older may repeat the names of several pictures and update the words as new pictures are introduced. Younger children, around age 7, may only repeat one name at a time, and as a new picture is presented, they drop the previous name they were rehearsing. Thus, they may not remember the pictures as well as older children, who use a more effective rehearsal strategy to maintain multiple words (Schwenck et al., 2007).

Spotlight on Research: Memory Strategies in the Classroom How do children acquire intentional memory strategies? Researchers investigating this question have learned that teachers can facilitate the acquisition of memory strategies by using memory- relevant language during instruction (Grammer, Coffman, & Ornstein, 2013). In one study, first- and second-grade children were randomly assigned to one of two instructional conditions. The conditions varied in terms of how much memory-relevant language was used by teachers trained in memory-relevant instructional techniques. As illustrated in Table 4.2, memory-relevant lan- guage consisted of making strategy suggestions for remembering information. It also included asking metamemory questions regarding why children selected the strategy they did. Teachers in the other instructional group did not include either strategy suggestions or metamemory questions. Children in the memory-relevant condition engaged in more effective strategy use and had higher levels of strategic knowledge in a memory task that was administered after the training session and in a second session a month later (Grammer et al., 2013).

(continued)

Section 4.3Influences on Explicit Memory Development

Spotlight on Research: Memory Strategies in the Classroom (continued)

Table 4.2: Memory-relevant instructional techniques

Definitions Example

Instructional techniques

Strategy suggestions Recommending that a child adopt a method or procedure for remembering or processing information.

“If you are having trouble think- ing of ways to connect the wheel to the axle, you can look at the diagram to help you.”

Metacognitive questions

Requesting that a child provide a potential strategy, utilized strat- egy, or rationale for a strategy he or she has indicated using.

“How did you figure out which pieces you would need to build a sturdy structure? How did you know that would work?”

Instructional techniques co-occurring with deliberate memory demands

Instructional activities

Requests for information from memory and the presentation of instructional information by the teacher.

“Today we will be building our own cars. Who knows the first step we take when building a new structure?”

Cognitive structuring activities

Requests for information from memory and teacher instruction that could impact the encoding and retrieval of information, such as focusing attention or organiz- ing material.

“All of these modes of transporta- tion have wheels. What is another vehicle that you have seen around town that also has wheels?”

Metacognitive information

Requests for information from memory and the provision or solicitation of metacognitive information.

“What kind of gear is this? What clue did you use to help you figure that out?”

Source: Grammer, J., Coffman, J. L., & Ornstein, P. (2013). The effect of teachers’ memory-relevant language on children’s strategy use and knowledge. Child Development, 84(6), 1989–2002. Reprinted with permission from John Wiley & Sons.

Critical-Thinking Questions

1. Would the strategies described in Table 4.2 be useful for children in preschool or kin- dergarten? Why or why not?

2. What modifications might be necessary in order to make some of these strategies use- ful for children younger than first grade?

The Role of Knowledge in Memory Development In addition to strategies, knowledge contributes to memory development. If asked to recall new information about topics with which they are already very familiar, both children and adults remember more new information about topics they already know compared to topics

Section 4.3Influences on Explicit Memory Development

with which they are unfamiliar (Haden, 2014). As we will see, effects of knowledge are found in highly specialized domains, such as chess and dinosaurs, as well as everyday events, such as trips to a store (Nelson, 1993).

Expertise and Recall Suppose you are an expert on some topic, such as sports or art. When you hear new informa- tion about your area of expertise, you will likely recall the information more easily than some- one who is unfamiliar with it. In addition to capacity and strategies, prior knowledge of a topic is important for memory development. In a classic study, chess pieces were set up on a chess- board in a meaningful arrangement typical of what would occur in the middle of an actual chess match. Adult chess experts and novices were provided 5 seconds to study the board and then recall the positions. Experts’ knowledge of chess helped them organize the new knowl- edge and later recall the meaningful positions of the pieces better than chess novices. Experts recalled almost all of the positions, remembering an average of 20 locations, whereas novices recalled about 4 locations. However, when the chess pieces were arranged randomly on the board, the memory advantage of the experts over the novices was eliminated. In the random memory task, chess knowledge was less relevant (Chase & Simon, 1973).

Similarly, some researchers have examined whether knowledge differences between older and younger children might account for the developmental improvement in memory perfor- mance that occurs with age. After all, older children have had the opportunity to learn more about many topics than have younger children, and thus have more “expertise.” A clever way to explore this is to reverse knowledge differences between younger and older children to see if it is possible to reverse memory differences. If knowledge accounts for children’s better memory performance, younger children should be able to recall more than older children or even adults if they know more about a topic.

For example, in one study researchers compared 10-year-old children who were chess experts to adults who were chess novices. The child experts recalled more from a chess memory task than the adult novices. However, on a digit-span memory task, used as a control for general memory ability, the adult novices had the advantage. This suggests that the children’s better chess memory was due to greater chess knowledge and not to better overall memory (Chi, 1978; see Schneider, Gruber, Gold & Opwis, 1993, for related chess findings). Similar patterns have been found for young children who are experts about dinosaurs or soccer (Chi & Koeske, 1983; Schneider & Bjorklund, 1992). Together, these findings suggest that knowledge can reduce or eliminate age differences in memory performance, supporting claims that knowl- edge contributes to developmental improvements in memory performance.

Event Memory Children’s memory for everyday experiences, or event memory, can also be used to dem- onstrate the role of knowledge in memory development. Event memory involves the use of scripts, which are generalized knowledge structures regarding familiar events and a type of semantic memory. An example of a basic script could involve preschoolers describing what happens at a birthday party or a trip to the beach. They are able to report the correct sequence of events in a skeletal manner. For instance, they may report that for a birthday party, “you eat cake and get presents.” Notice there is not much detail provided in these scripts. These memo- ries are nevertheless more organized than traditional memory tasks, such as picture recall,

Section 4.3Influences on Explicit Memory Development

for 3- or 4-year old children. Older children show the same basic structural organization but include more details in their script memories (Nelson, 1993).

Children have more knowledge and experience going to parties than recalling random lists of pictures. This organization is reflected in their recall of a correct sequence of activities. Another characteristic of script recall is that it is more general than specific; for example, children are more likely to report what typically happens at a birthday rather than a specific party. They are also likely to use the present tense rather than the past tense and use the gen- eral “you” and not “I” when referring to participants (French, 1986).

Table 4.3 illustrates the developmental progression from 3- to 8-year-olds in their script for making cookies (Nelson & Gruendel, 1981). Notice how these scripts become increasingly detailed with age. However, even the 3-year-old’s script has a temporal structure of the cor- rect order and refers to the general “you.”

Table 4.3: Cookie-making scripts of children ages 3 to 8 years

Age of child Script

3 years, 1 month Well, you bake them and eat them.

4.5 years My Mommy puts chocolate chips inside the cookies. Then ya put ’em in the oven.… Then we take them out, put them on the table and eat them.

6 years Add three cups of butter… add three lumps of butter.… Two cups of sugar, one cup of flour. Mix it up… knead it. Get it in a pan, put it in the oven. Bake it … set it up to 30. Take it out and it’ll be cookies.

8 years, 8 months First, you need a bowl, a bowl, and you need about two eggs and chocolate chips and an egg-beater! And then you gotta crack open and put it in a bowl and ya gotta get the chips and mix it together. And put it in a stove for about 5 or 10 minutes, and then you have cookies. Then ya eat them!

Source: Nelson, K., & Gruendel, J. (1981). Generalized event representations: Basic building blocks of cognitive development. In M. Lamb & A. Brown (Eds.), Advances in developmental psychology (Vol. 1) (pp. 131–158). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Children develop script memories prior to developing episodic memories for frequently experienced events (Brubacher, Glisic, Roberts, & Powell, 2011). When young children, such as 4-year-olds, are asked to recall a particular episode of a specific event in which they have had several experiences, such as a birthday party, their episodic memory is generally poor. They often will have false intrusions of specific details from other birthday parties in their recall. For example, they may not remember whether they had chocolate cake at Billy’s party or Alicia’s party. However, their general script memory is correct. Older children, such as 7-year-olds, typically can recall the details of a specific episode (Farrar & Boyer-Pennington, 1999). On the other hand, even young children have fairly good episodic memories for single one-time events. Their difficulty is recalling a specific instance of a type of event that has been repeated several times. In order to remember a particular episode of a frequently experi- enced event, children need to have established a script to help organize the new experiences.

Thus, as with capacities and strategies, knowledge contributes to developmental improve- ments in memory. Knowledge improves memory in three ways. First, prior knowledge pro- vides a structure for organizing the details of new material to be remembered. In a sense,

Section 4.3Influences on Explicit Memory Development

it provides the files to store the new information. A script for an event, for instance, helps organize the specific details of particular event experience. Second, knowledge can help make inferences about what might have occurred. For example, the chess experts could infer that certain arrangements would never occur in the context of a chess game. The novices would be less likely to be able to recognize these patterns. Third, knowledge can enhance automa- ticity, or how quickly information is processed. An expert can quickly recognize the chess pieces or event script and can therefore devote more cognitive resources to processing the new information.

Metamemory and Memory Development What do you know about memory? Most likely you know that memorizing an entire book would be extremely difficult and take a long time. When studying for an exam, you usually have a sense of how well you are learning the material. These examples are illustrations of metamemory, the fourth factor that contributes to memory development.

Metamemory is a specific type of metacognition, which refers to awareness of different aspects of one’s own thinking and particular cognitive processes. Metamemory involves con- scious and explicit knowledge of one’s own memory as well as memory in general. It includes understanding what strategies are effective, which memory tasks are going to be difficult, and which will be easy. For example, if asked whether they could memorize 50 words in a minute, 5-year-olds are likely to say “yes,” which exhibits poor metamemory. They are very optimis- tic and tend to overestimate their skills in a wide variety of contexts. This optimism may be adaptive, however, because it enables them to take on challenging tasks (Shin, Bjorklund, & Beck, 2007).

Metamemory can be broken down into several dimensions of memory knowledge (Flavell & Wellman, 1977; Lockl & Schneider, 2002; Roebers, 2014). Declarative metamemory is the knowledge of characteristics about oneself (and others), the task, and strategy variables and how these influence memory. For instance, knowing that different memory tasks, such as recall and recognition tasks, may vary in difficulty involves declarative metamemory.

Procedural metamemory involves knowing how to perform different memory-related skills. This could involve knowing how to employ an elaboration strategy to assist recall. It is composed of a monitoring component and a control and self-regulation component. Moni- toring involves being aware of how well you will perform or are performing a memory task. For example, prior to learning new material to be recalled later, children might be asked how easy it will be to learn the information. Self-regulation or control refers to the ability to use strategies effectively based on knowledge of the memory task. This includes using study time judiciously based on the difficulty of the material to be learned (Roebers, 2014). Overall, as is the case with strategy development, substantial improvements have been observed in chil- dren’s metamemory between ages 5 and 12 (Fritz, Howie, & Kleitman, 2010; Sodian, Schnei- der, & Perlmutter, 1986).

In a memory study of second and third graders, children were asked to recall a list of words that could be clustered into categories. Metamemory was assessed through a series of ques- tions about different aspects of memory. The number of items children recalled was directly related to their metamemory and their use of the categorical organization strategy (Pierce & Lange, 2000).

Section 4.3Influences on Explicit Memory Development

Other factors such as language proficiency are also associated with strategy use. Children with better language skills can more efficiently and automatically use a language-based strategy such as rehearsal. A recent study examined the dual effects of language proficiency and metamemory in a word recall test of 5- to 11-year-olds. Metamemory was assessed by asking children questions, including whether it would be easier to remember four or eight words and how many cards they would be able to remember from a set. These questions were asked prior to learning and recalling the cards. Children were then instructed to study the cards and recall them later. Both metamemory and language variables were related to recall memory and the use of rehearsal. The strength of the effect of metamemory was affected by children’s language proficiency. Children with higher language skills and more accurate metamemory scores remembered more than those who scored lower in these abili- ties (Bebko et al., 2014).

Source monitoring is a metamemory skill that can affect the accuracy of children’s memory. Source monitoring refers to an individual’s ability to identify the source of the information he or she recalls (Foley, 2014). That is, did the child actually experience the event, or did the child hear about it from his or her parents or watch it on television? Younger children aged 3 and 4 have difficulty in source monitoring (Roberts & Blades, 1999).

According to researchers, identifying the source of a memory requires comparing the mem- ory characteristics of different experiences (Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993). Actual experienced events typically have richer details involving the context and perceptual aspects (color, emotions, and so on) than events that were only heard about. Further, the more distinc- tive events are in these characteristics, the easier it is to identify their source. For instance, a child who experiences one event involving a boy and a similar event involving a girl will be better able to distinguish these events than if the two events each involved a girl (Lindsay, Johnson, & Kwon, 1991).

Children with better source-monitoring abilities can more accurately recall episodic events (Thierry, Lamb, & Orbach, 2003). It is possible to improve children’s source-monitoring abili- ties through training. It is generally easier to improve source monitoring for events experi- enced live or watched on videos in 5- and 6-year-olds than in younger children (Thierry et al., 2003). However, preschool children who were trained on source monitoring on one set of events were able to transfer their new source-monitoring skills to identify the source for a different set of live and televised events (Thierry, Lamb, Pipe, & Spence, 2010). Thus, even 3- and 4-year-olds can be trained on source monitoring.

Overall, improvements in memory can be attributed to all four components: capacity, strate- gies, knowledge, and metamemory. To examine the relative importance of most of these fac- tors, researchers in one study measured recall memory for words in 5- to 11-year-olds. Chil- dren’s working memory was assessed using both a backward digit-span task and a word-span task. Their use of strategies was assessed, including categorical organization, rehearsal, and “self-testing” (assessing how many words they were recalling). Metamemory was measured by asking about their strategy use during specific trials (DeMarie, Miller, Ferron, & Cunning- ham, 2004).

The components affected recall memory in different ways. If children had poor metamemory and low capacity, strategy use had only a small effect on the number of words recalled. If both

Section 4.3Influences on Explicit Memory Development

were high, however, increases in strategy use had a stronger impact on recall. The study dem- onstrates that capacity, strategy, and metamemory interact to influence memory development (DeMarie et al., 2004). One of the study’s limitations was that the influence of knowledge was not examined, although it likely also makes a separate contribution to memory development.

Neuroscience and Memory Development Many of the changes that occur in memory development can be attributed to brain develop- ment (Bachevalier, 2014). The development of implicit and explicit memory during infancy and early childhood are associated with specific brain regions (Richmond & Nelson, 2008). Specifically, the development of the implicit, unconscious memories during the first few months of life has been linked to the development of the striatum, cerebellum, and brain stem. These regions allow implicit memories, such as operant and classical conditioning procedures. The development of more explicit memories late in the first year has been linked to development of the hippocam- pus, which is located near the temporal lobe, and the prefrontal cortex (Bachevalier, 2014; Richmond & Nel- son, 2008). Figure 4.4 illustrates the role of different brain regions in memory.

Figure 4.4: Brain regions associated with memory

Different memory functions are related to entirely different regions of the brain. Of particular relevance to the development of explicit memory is the hippocampus. Implicit memory is linked to the cerebellum, striatum, and brain stem.

Hippocampus

Stratium

Brain stem Cerebellum

Question to Consider

How can teachers apply an understand- ing of the fundamentals of memory development to the education of children? Choose a specific grade or age level and consider how knowledge, strategies, and metamemory each could be incorporated to aid children’s memory development.

Section 4.4Autobiographical Memory

4.4 Autobiographical Memory Autobiographical memories are personally significant memories about the self. The evidence shows that infants remember their experiences and that these memories can persist over relatively long periods. Why, then, do adults have difficulty remembering their experiences of infancy or even early childhood? As mentioned earlier, infantile or childhood amnesia is the inability to recall these early experiences. Figure 4.5 illustrates the likelihood of adults recall- ing positive and negative events that occurred at different ages during their early childhood. Most adults are able to recall events from around age 4, although some report memories as early as age 1 to 2. Negative memories tended to be the first memories, but both negative and positive recollections occurred at most ages (Wells, Morrison, & Conway, 2014).

Figure 4.5: Age of adults’ earliest memories

Adults’ recall of positive and negative memories from different ages of childhood. Most adults’ earliest negative memories are of events that took place around age 4. Positive memories tend to develop somewhat later.

0.2

0.15

0.1

0.05

0

Probability of recalling a memory at different ages

A g

e o

f e

a rl

ie s t

m e

m o

ry r

e c

a lle

d

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Negative memories

Positive memories

Source: Wells, C., Morrison, C., & Conway, M. (2014). Adult recollections of childhood memories: What details can be recalled? Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 67(7), 1249–1261. Reprinted with permission from Taylor & Francis.

One of the difficulties in autobiographical memory research is verifying a memory’s accuracy. Parents can help confirm the event, although their memories are subject to distortion as well. A related issue involves source monitoring: Are adults actually remembering an event from their own childhood, or are they recalling a story they were told or a video they have seen? Piaget reported that for years he remembered being kidnapped as a young child. It turned out this never happened. His nanny made up the story to cover up a robbery (Piaget, 1951). Some research has shown that as both children and adults get older, the age of their earliest mem- ory gets older as well (Wang & Peterson, 2014). In other words, a child of 5 might remember an event that occurred when he or she was 2 years old. In adulthood, the same individual might remember only events that occurred when he or she was 5.

Section 4.4Autobiographical Memory

There have been a number of different explanations of infantile amnesia and the emergence of autobiographical memories. Sigmund Freud proposed one early explanation. He argued that our behavior is often controlled and governed by unconscious psychological processes that can be highly distressing because of their sexual content. Freud believed that early memories are present in the subconscious, but that they are repressed from conscious memory because of their content (Freud, 1931). More recently, other explanations have come to the forefront, including ideas of self-concept and social-constructivist perspectives.

Self-Concept and Autobiographical Memory A current argument regarding autobiographical memories is that autobiographical memory requires a self-concept. This includes knowledge about the self, including physical and psy- chological traits. By definition, autobiographical memories are about the self; thus, a self- concept is needed before these memories can form. It has been proposed that perhaps the reason infants and toddlers do not maintain their memories into adulthood is that they do not have a self-concept to organize autobiographical memories (Howe, Courage, & Edison, 2003).

The standard procedure used to assess self-concept for infants and toddlers is the marked mirror task. The experimenter secretly places a red mark on each child’s nose. The children are then placed in front of a mirror to see if they touch their own nose, rather than the nose on the image in the mirror. If they do touch their own nose, it is taken as an indication that they recognize themselves. This physical self-concept emerges around age 18 to 24 months (Gallup, Platek, & Spaulding, 2014), which is the very earliest age at which adults report their earliest childhood experiences (Wells et al., 2014).

More complex forms of self-concept develop over the next several years, including an extended view of self (Povinelli, 2001). The extended view of self reflects the understanding that past experiences can affect the state of current self. Interestingly, this extended view of self does not emerge until around age 4 (Povinelli, 2001), the age at which most adults recall their first memories. Thus, there is indirect support for a link between self-concept and the develop- ment of autobiographical memory.

Social-Constructivist Perspectives on Autobiographical Memory We have millions of experiences throughout our lives. Why do we retain some as part of our autobiographical memory system and forget others? One perspective on the emergence of autobiographical memory adopts a social-constructivist or Vygotskian view (Nelson & Fivush, 2004). As you may recall from Chapter 1, the social-constructivist approach argues that cog- nitive development takes place in the context of social interactions. Parents and children often discuss past experiences such as family vacations and birthday parties using memory talk, or conversations about previous experiences. Two different types of parental memory talk have been identified. An elaborative style occurs when parents create a rich narrative or description of the past event. They expand on what the child says by adding detail and eliciting related information. A repetitive style is characterized by the parent asking a series of yes–no questions and not creating a story of the past (Nelson & Fivush, 2004). Table 4.4 provides an example of an elaborative memory style and a repetitive memory style.

Section 4.4Autobiographical Memory

Table 4.4: Elaborative and repetitive memory talk styles

Elaborative style Repetitive style

Mother (M): Do you remember something really, really, really special that you and I got to do? Six-year-old child (C): Uh huh. M: Got on the train. … C: Yeah. M: We went to the Omni.… C: Uh huh. And we saw Sesame Street Live. M: Right. Where were our seats? C: Um, I forget. M: Way up high, how high? C: In the balcony. M: So high we could see all the over the.… Do you

remember? The stage? C: Yeah. M: What did we see? C: We saw Big Bird. We saw, um the Honkers, we

saw Ernie and Bert, we saw Grover.

M: Do you remember when we were down in Florida?

C: Yeah. M: And we were dyeing Easter eggs? C: Uh huh. M: What did we do? C: Hmm. Like what? M: Like remember, well how did we dye the Easter

eggs? C: Oh. Got some little paint something, goes, like

that. M: And can you explain more to me what we did? C: Oh. The Easter Bunny came.… M: But I mean about dyeing the eggs, remember that

day we were all dyeing the eggs?

Source: Reese, E., Haden, C., & Fivush, R. (1993). Mother–child conversations about the past: Relationships of style and memory over time. Cognitive Development, 8, 403–430. Reprinted with permission from Elsevier..

What do you notice about the two styles? The repetitive mother keeps asking the child the same question about dyeing the eggs even when the child brought up additional information. There is no story in this example. Contrast this to the elaborative mother. She creates a rich narrative or story about seeing Sesame Street Live. She expands on what information the child provides, even though the child’s contribution may initially be quite limited.

Children whose parents have an elaborative style tend to recall more about these experiences 1 to 2 years later (Fivush et al., 2006). Interestingly, children do not simply recall what the parents said but recall additional details about the past event. The narratives are facilitative of memory for three reasons. First, they serve as a reminder of the previous event. Reminders enhance memory at all ages. Second, memory talk also illustrates to the child the importance of social bonding by conversing about interactions with important people. Third, memory talk provides children with a narrative framework for talking about the past (see Fivush, 2009).

As noted above, children whose parents use an elaborative style have better recall of these events a year or so later. Are these parental style differences in the preschool years related to later autobiographical memory? A recent longitudinal study followed children from pre- school to adolescence. When the children were preschoolers, maternal style was assessed as the children and parents discussed past experiences. When these children were adolescents, they were interviewed about their earliest memories. Those adolescents whose parents used the elaborative style had earlier memories than those who used a repetitive style (Jack, Mac- Donald, Reese, & Hayne, 2009).

Cross-cultural comparisons have also demonstrated differences in earliest autobiographical memories based on narrative styles. Specifically, adults from Asian cultures tend to have later first autobiographical memories than adults of European descent (Wang, 2006). Many of

Section 4.5Eyewitness Testimony

these cultural differences have been attributed to parental style differences. For instance, Asian parents tend to discuss past events less than parents from West- ern cultures (Wang, 2006). Gender differences have also been found as well, with females having earlier autobiographical memories than males. This may be because parents tend to engage in less elaborative memory talk with boys than with girls (Fivush, Berlin, Sales, Mennuti-Washburn & Cassidy, 2003; Grysman & Hudson, 2013).

4.5 Eyewitness Testimony Imagine that you are on a jury listening to the testimony of a preschool child aged 3 to 5 years. The child is the only eyewitness to a crime involving sexual and physical abuse against him or her, or against someone else. Would you believe the child’s testimony? Why or why not? During the past 25 years, these types of cases have generated considerable media attention. Concerns often raised against relying on children’s testimony include beliefs that their mem- ories are inaccurate, that children are highly suggest- ible, and that they do not understand the difference between the truth and a lie (Malloy, Mitchell, Block, Quas, & Goodman, 2007). Understanding the basic aspects of memory development is of utmost impor- tance in high-stakes situations like this.

More broadly, concerns regarding accuracy of eyewit- ness testimony illustrate the constructive nature of memory. Forming a memory for an event is not the same as making a video recording of the event. Memo- ries of experiences are reconstructions, which means that they can be modified by postevent experiences. This can include the questions or information of oth- ers, as well as changes in mood or mental state (Howes & O’Shea).

A major concern regarding children’s testimony is that young children are suggestible and can be easily influ- enced by the statements and questions of others. Once abuse is suspected, children are questioned many times by parents, lawyers, and police. During these interviews, adults may make suggestions about what happened to the child. Sometimes these suggestions are made to elicit testimony or memories of abuse, since children may be reluctant or embarrassed to talk about it. The con- cern is that over time, children may come to believe that the suggestions are true even when they are false (see Price & Connolly, 2013).

Questions to Consider

1. Why is autobiographical memory important? What would happen if someone lost his or her memories of the past?

2. How might autobiographical memory be used to aid children’s academic learning? How could it help their social development?

Glow Images/Superstock Allowing children to testify in court as eyewitnesses has raised concerns regarding the accuracy of their memory.

Section 4.5Eyewitness Testimony

A court case in New Jersey illustrates this problem. A preschool teacher was convicted on multiple charges of child abuse of 20 preschoolers and sentenced to 47 years in prison. The charges were quite graphic. The only witnesses to this abuse were the preschoolers. No adults observed any of the abuse, which took place over a 7-month period. The abuse allegations began based on the comments of a single child to a pediatrician. This led other parents to question their children, which resulted in the preschool teacher’s prosecution and conviction based almost entirely on the children’s testimony. The preschool teacher appealed on the grounds that the interviews were highly suggestive and created false memories in children.

Provided below is an example of a recorded interview session between a child, a detective, and a social worker who had previously interviewed the child on several occasions. It was included as part of the appeal.

Social worker (SW): Don’t be so unfriendly, I thought we were buddies last time.

Child (C): Nope, not any more.

SW: We have gotten a lot of other kids to help us since I last saw you.… Did we tell you that [the teacher] is in jail?

C: Yes. My mother already told me.

SW: Did I tell you that this is the guy [pointing to the detective (D)] that arrested her?… We can get out of here real quick if you just tell me what you told me last time.…

C: I forgot.

SW: No you didn’t. I know you didn’t.

C: I did! I did!…

SW: Oh, come on. We talked to a few of your friends. And everyone told me about the nap room, and the bathroom stuff, and the music room stuff.… Come on, do you want to help us out? Do you want to keep her in jail? Real quick, will you just tell me what happened with the wooden spoon?

C: I forgot.

Detective (D): Now listen you have to behave.

SW: Do you want to tell him to behave? Are you going to be a good boy, huh? While you were here did he [D] show you his badge and handcuffs? (Ceci & Bruck, 1993, pp. 422–423)

As you can see, the child was pressured to provide testimony and was given suggestions about what happened. Further, threats of punishment were made if he did not provide the correct testimony. This interview was typical of many of the interviews conducted with the children. After spending 5 years in prison, the teacher had her conviction overturned and was released

Section 4.5Eyewitness Testimony

from prison. The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that the interviews were coercive and used suggestive techniques (State v. Michaels, 1993).

Thus, because of this and similar cases, some argue that in most cases the testimony of pre- school children, generally from age 3 to 5 years, is too unreliable to be used in criminal trials (see Klemfuss & Ceci, 2013, for a discussion). Although concern can be raised about the tes- timony of children of all ages, special attention has been directed toward preschool children. This is partly because of their central involvement in high-profile cases, but primarily because of their cognitive immaturity and limitations; for instance, as described by Piagetian theory (see Chapter 1).

Most developmental researchers would agree that the techniques used in the New Jersey criminal trial were inappropriate. This does not mean, though, that children’s testimony is always unreliable. There has been extensive research examining the influences on children’s testimony, such as the extent of their accuracy, their suggestibility, and ways to optimize the validity of their testimony.

Suggestibility Research If children’s eyewitness testimony tends to be inaccurate, then it should be fairly easy to lead children to have false memories in laboratory studies of memory. In these studies, researchers attempt to mislead children by asking questions that include false statements. For example, the child might be asked about the physical description of experimenter, “He wore glasses, didn’t he?,” when in fact he did not (Quas et al., 2007).

In one study, 4- and 7-year-old children visited a university playroom to play some games with a male experimenter. One child participated and the other observed. The games included activities of thumb wrestling, putting on a clown outfit, and having their picture taken. All of these activities were perfectly innocent, but under questioning by a concerned or suspicious parent, these events could take on a more sinister meaning. A week later, children were inter- viewed by another experimenter about their experiences under several recall conditions.

First, in the free-recall portion of the interview, children were asked to report what happened without the interviewer making any suggestions. Following free recall, children were asked a series of suggestive questions, some of which were true and some of which were false. Exam- ples included “He touched you didn’t he?” and “He took your clothes off, didn’t he?” These questions could suggest some type of abuse. Other types of suggestive questions were of a nonabusive nature (such as, “He had brown hair, didn’t he?”).

During free recall, although older children recalled more information than younger ones, neither age group reported events that did not occur. Of particular interest was how they responded to the suggestibility questions. The younger children were more suggestible than the older ones involving the nonabuse misleading questions. However, even for the young- est children, the majority of their answers were correct. For the abuse questions, accuracy rates were even higher: 93% correct for the 7-year-olds and 83% correct for the 4-year-olds. The errors made frequently involved ambiguous questions involving touching. Children who participated in the event were less suggestible than those who observed (Rudy & Goodman, 1991; see Goodman, Pipe, & McWilliams, 2011).

Section 4.5Eyewitness Testimony

One limitation of such studies is they do not mirror what happens in the real world when there is an allegation of abuse. In these situations children are interviewed repeatedly, often by fam- ily members and strangers. They are under stress, and there is also a long delay between the abusive event and a trial. In one investigation, researchers examined whether it was possible to implant a false memory in children who were interviewed multiple times. Children were questioned repeatedly about real events that happened to them as well as false events that never occurred, such as going on a hot air balloon ride (Ceci, Huffman, Smith, & Loftus, 1994).

A sizable number of children reported the false event actually happened to them and even added additional details that the experimenter never mentioned! They “recalled” the false memory even though the experimenter warned children that not all the events they would be asked about had actually occurred (Ceci et al., 1994). When reinterviewed 2 years later about the same true and false events, children still accurately remembered the true events. Inter- estingly, however, only half the number of children still recalled the false event, and many recanted their earlier testimony (Huffman, Crossman, & Ceci, 1997). Research has also shown that repeated questioning is not necessary to implant a false memory (Ceci, Kulkofsky, Klem- floss, Sweeney, & Bruck, 2007).

This type of research raises serious ethical issues. In order to conduct these types of experi- ments, researchers must get approval from a university Institutional Review Board, which is focused on protecting participants. Furthermore, parents must give their permission for their child to participate. After the experiment is over, the researchers must explain to the child (that is, debrief ) that some of the events they were asked about were false. Despite these precautions, ethical concerns can still be raised regarding the types of questions children are asked and the implanting of false memories.

Source monitoring, previously described in the metamemory section, also affects the accu- racy of children’s testimony. Many different people likely interview children thought to be victims of abuse, and interview them numerous times. This includes parents, police, lawyers, and social workers. In order to elicit children’s memories, suggestions about what happened are made. When later testifying, children may have difficulty accurately identifying the source from which information was obtained.

Spotlight on Research: Stress and Memory in Children From everyday classroom lessons to high-stakes testing, children are often asked to remember information when they are under stress. Perhaps not surprisingly, research has found that children’s stress or anxiety has an adverse effect on some measures of memory (Cheie, Miclea, & Visu-Petra, 2014). Being asked to remember events as an eyewitness in a courtroom is per- haps among the most stressful experiences a child might face, especially if the trial is related to his or her own abuse. Not only could it be difficult or painful, but it is likely that stress might affect his or her testimony.

Studying the impact of such stress is a challenge for researchers, since it is unethical to expose children to high levels of stress. However, researchers have found ways to examine previously occurring stressful situations to investigate their effect on memory (Greenhoot, Ornstein, Gordon, & Baker-Ward, 1999).

(continued)

Section 4.5Eyewitness Testimony

Spotlight on Research: Stress and Memory in Children (continued) A recent study investigated memory in 322 abused or neglected children from age 3 to 16 years (Eisen, Goodman, Qin, Davis, & Crayton, 2007). As part of the standard forensic investigation after their abuse was reported, children underwent a potentially stressful medical procedure, which included an anogenital examination, and had blood samples taken. The researchers used these blood samples to assess children’s stress levels by measuring cortisol, a stress hor- mone. Children’s ratings of their own stress levels were also obtained, as were measures of their dissociative symptoms, characterized by children talking to themselves, hearing voices, and other signs associated with trauma or extreme stress.

Children’s memory of the physical exam was assessed 5 days later. Those children who had high cortisol levels and reported dissociative tendencies had high memory errors. They tended to be more suggestible to misleading questions and had poorer recall of the medical procedures. This was not found for children who did not report dissociative symptoms or had low corti- sol levels. Finally, those children who had confirmed abuse experiences had greater accuracy compared to children who were neglected by their parents. Together these results indicate that children can have accurate memories if they have been abused. However, their memory is negatively affected by the presence of stress and dissociative symptoms (Eisen et al., 2007).

Critical-Thinking Questions

1. What types of situations in the home or at school can lead children to feel stress?

2. What impact could stress have on a child’s academic performance, and what steps can be done to help alleviate such stress?

Does the research in children’s eyewitness testimony suggest that 3- and 4-year-old preschool- ers are credible witnesses? The overall accuracy rates in free recall are relatively high. This is consistent with the findings described earlier for script and episodic memory. Clearly, chil- dren can report events that did not occur, particularly when misleading questions are used.

How can teachers, parents, and law enforcement officials use this research to investigate claims of abuse? It may always be difficult to know if a particular child is accurately testifying about an event (as it often is with adults). However, one of the benefits derived from studies of children’s testi- mony is the development of standardized interview procedures. These guidelines from the National Insti- tute of Child Health and Human Development are designed to maximize the accuracy of children’s testi- mony (Lamb, Orbach, Hershkowitz, Esplin, & Howow- itz, 2007). They include procedures for establishing a rapport with the child to make the child feel comfort- able. Also, and critically, these guidelines provide exten- sive interview protocols for using effective questioning techniques to elicit accurate testimony. No one wants an innocent person to be convicted or a guilty person to get away with a crime.

Question to Consider

At the beginning of this section, you were asked to imagine being on a jury that was evaluating a child’s testimony. Now imagine that you are the judge providing instructions to a jury regarding how to weigh the child’s testimony. What instructions and guidance would you provide the jury?

Summary and Resources

Summary and Resources

Chapter Summary

• Information-processing models of memory describe different memory stores, including short-term memory, working memory, and long-term memory. The capac- ity and duration of these memories increase with age through adolescence and young adulthood.

• Short-term memory is a temporary memory store for holding information received from the senses; working memory is closely related and involves the manipulation of information during problem solving. Long-term memory is used to store information for extended periods and is often permanent.

• There are different forms of long-term memory. A distinction is made between implicit and explicit memories, which are unconscious and conscious memories, respectively.

• Implicit memory first emerges in infancy and is exhibited in classical and operant conditioning and priming.

• Explicit memory comprises semantic (general information) and episodic (a specific event) memories.

• Infants can demonstrate both recognition and recall memory using a variety of tech- niques. These include habituation, operant conditioning, and deferred imitation.

• After infancy, the development of explicit memory continues to develop in early childhood through adolescence. Improvements in children’s memory recall have been attributed to capacity, strategies, knowledge, and metamemory.

• During the elementary school period, children begin to use a variety of strategies to facilitate recall, such as rehearsal and elaboration. The strategies become more efficient and effective with practice.

• As children’s knowledge of different topics develop, their recall of new information relevant to that domain increases.

• Metamemory includes conscious knowledge of memory, such as what are easy and hard memory tasks, the use of strategies, and the ability to monitor one’s own memory performance.

• Infantile or childhood amnesia is an adult’s inability to recall childhood experiences that occurred before age 4 for most adults, which is the age for establishing autobio- graphical memories.

• There are a variety of explanations for why childhood amnesia ends and how auto- biographical memories emerge. According to one perspective, the development of a self-concept is necessary for autobiographical memory. The social-constructivist view proposes that memory talk between parents and children about past experi- ences leads to autobiographical memory development; an elaborative style is more beneficial than a repetitive style in forming memory.

• The accuracy of children’s eyewitness testimony is affected by several factors, including what interview techniques are used. Preschool children are more sug- gestible than older children. However, under proper interview techniques, young children can give accurate testimony. Stress can also directly impact memory for traumatic events, as can psychological conditions related to stress or trauma, such as dissociative symptoms.

Summary and Resources

Posttest Questions

1. Semantic memory is best described as a type of memory.

a. implicit b. procedural c. long-term d. sensory

2. What type of memory store is centrally involved in engaging in mental arithmetic, such as 23 × 6?

a. working memory b. episodic memory c. short-term memory d. sensory memory

3. According to the information-processing approach, which memory process is involved in stabilizing and integrating a memory?

a. encoding b. retrieval c. consolidation d. utilization

4. Which of the following techniques would NOT be appropriate for measuring implicit memory in infancy?

a. habituation–dishabituation b. deferred imitation c. operant conditioning d. classical conditioning

5. At what age do explicit memories first appear?

a. 1 month b. 6 months c. 12 months d. 24 months

6. In comparing memory for child chess experts versus adult chess novices, which of the following statements is true?

a. Child experts had better chess memory and digit-span memory. b. Adult novices had better chess memory and digit-span memory. c. Child experts had better chess memory. d. Child experts and adult novices were similar on both memory tasks.

7. General memory for a routine event is referred to as memory.

a. script b. implicit c. episodic d. procedural

Summary and Resources

8. Which type of intentional memory strategy appears first in development?

a. elaboration b. rehearsal c. categorical information d. text based

9. Parents who provide rich narratives and create a story of previous events are using what type of memory talk?

a. repetitive b. narrative c. expansive d. elaborative

10. Most adults’ earliest childhood memory occurred at what age?

a. 1 b. 4 c. 7 d. 10

11. Which of the following factors is related to decreases in children’s suggestibility?

a. source-monitoring skills b. use of leading questions c. repeated questioning d. inhibitory control

12. Memory studies of abused children indicate that they have poorer memory if they show and .

a. high stress; no dissociative symptoms b. low stress; dissociative symptoms c. high stress; dissociative symptoms d. low high stress; no dissociative symptoms

Critical-Thinking Questions

1. Memory is foundational for all cognitive development. Describe how developmental changes in each of the different types of memory stores can lead to improvements in cognitive skills such as problem solving.

2. Should memory strategies be part of the core educational curriculum? If not, why not? If so, at what ages should training be implemented, and how should it be provided?

3. Selecting either autobiographical memory or eyewitness memory, apply your under- standing of basic memory stores and processes to explain how they contribute to this type of memory.

Summary and Resources

Key Terms

autobiographical memories Personally significant memories about the self.

capacity The amount of information that a memory store can hold.

categorical organization A memory strategy of placing items to be recalled in semantically related categories; also known as clustering or chunking.

classical conditioning A form of implicit memory in which a neutral stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus repeatedly, until the neutral stimulus elicits the automatic response originally associated with the unconditioned stimulus.

consolidation A memory process of inte- grating information into long-term memory.

cumulative rehearsal A memory strategy characterized by repeating several words at a time and dropping the earliest words in the list when new words are added.

declarative metamemory The knowledge of how characteristics pertinent to a task influence memory.

deferred imitation A procedure used to demonstrate recall memory in which infants observe an action and then repeat it after some delay.

elaboration A memory strategy involving creating a vivid mental image of the material to be remembered.

elaborative style A narrative style in which parents create a descriptive narrative of a past event they are discussing with children.

encoding A memory process of paying attention to the stimulus to be remembered.

episodic memory Memory for a specific event that occurred at a particular time.

event memory Memory for everyday expe- riences, such as what happens at a birthday party or what was served at lunch yesterday, or for unusual experiences.

explicit memory A memory that is con- sciously available, including memories for information and experiences. Consists of both semantic and episodic memories.

flashbulb memories A type of episodic memory in which a person recalls the details of his or her personal experience (the loca- tion, other people present, and so on) of a highly salient historical event.

implicit memory A memory that we are not consciously aware of, such as procedural memories and conditioning.

infantile or childhood amnesia The inability of older children and adults to recall their early childhood experiences.

long-term memory The central memory store of long-lasting memories, with essen- tially unlimited capacity and a long duration.

memory talk Memory conversations between parent and child about previously shared events.

metamemory Conscious and explicit knowledge about memory, including one’s own memory capabilities and various memory strategies.

monitoring A type of metamemory that involves awareness of how well one is per- forming a memory task.

Summary and Resources

operant conditioning A form of implicit memory in which the likelihood of increas- ing or decreasing a behavior depends on whether it is reinforced or punished.

priming A type of implicit memory that occurs when a stimulus becomes easier to process with repeated presentations.

procedural metamemory A component of metamemory reflecting awareness that intentional behavior is required to help one remember something.

recall memory A memory retrieved of a stimulus without the stimulus being present at the time of recall.

recognition memory The knowledge that one had previously experienced a presented stimulus.

rehearsal A memory strategy of repeating information to be remembered.

repetitive style A narrative style in which parents ask children a series of yes–no ques- tions without creating a story of the past.

retrieval A memory process of recalling information from long-term memory.

scripts General knowledge structures for familiar events, such as going to the grocery store or what typically happens at a birthday party.

self-regulation A component of metamem- ory involving the awareness that one is ready to recall something one has learned.

semantic memory Explicit memory of gen- eral information; for instance, memory for word meanings and scientific information.

sensory memory A memory store for infor- mation received from the environment, with a very brief duration (less than a second).

short-term memory A temporary mem- ory store of limited capacity and duration (approximately 30 seconds).

source monitoring A process in which individuals identify where they obtained information they recall.

suggestible The tendency to modify one’s memory due to the statements or questions of others.

text strategies Strategies for remember- ing written text material, which include highlighting text and summarizing textbook material.

utilization deficiency The spontaneous use of a memory strategy that does not lead to memory improvement.

Additional Resources Web Resources

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Protocol: Interview Guide http://nichdprotocol.com/NICHDProtocol2.pdf This guide provides information about the proper interviewing techniques for children.

Effective Memory Strategies for Special Needs Children http://www.educationcorner.com/special-needs-memory-strategies.html This site provides memory strategies that work well for children with disabilities and special needs.

Summary and Resources

Family Narratives Lab http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cognition/fivush/lab/FivushLabWebsite This is the website of Robyn Fivush, a leading memory-development researcher who examines autobiographical memory from a social-constructivist approach; the link for her research lab describes her research projects.

Further Reading

Bauer, P. J., & Fivush, R. (2014). The Wiley handbook on the development of children’s memory (Vols. 1–2). West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. This two-volume set reviews current perspectives on a wide range of memory topics in childhood.

Schneider, W. (2015). Memory development from early childhood through emerging adult- hood. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. This book from Wolfgang Schneider—an influential researcher who often conducts longitudinal studies of memory development—covers many of the aspects of memory considered in this text.

Answers and Rejoinders to Chapter 4 Pretest

1. True. Information in long-term memory is often permanent, although it may be for- gotten. However, not all information in long-term memory is permanent.

2. True. Studies have shown that infants can remember some of their experiences for short periods.

3. False. Memory capacity does increase with age, but changes in strategies and knowl- edge also play important roles.

4. True. Most adults report their first memories as occurring between ages 4 and 8, with the majority around age 4.

5. False. Although it is possible to implant a false memory in children, it is also possible to do so with adults. Evidence suggests that following proper interview techniques reduces the likelihood of implanting false memories in children.

Answers and Rejoinders to Chapter 4 Posttest

1. c. long-term Semantic memory is a form of long-term memory involving general information, such as the names of different animals. It is contrasted with episodic memory, which is long-term memory for specific events.

2. a. working memory To solve this problem it is necessary to keep the products of multiplying the num- bers in working memory in order to add them to obtain the answer.

3. c. consolidation Consolidation occurs after encoding and reflects the establishment of a stable memory by the amount of cognitive effort.

4. b. consolidation Deferred imitation is used to study explicit memory. Children watch as the experi- menter demonstrates a series of actions, which the infants later recall. Implicit memory is investigated with the other techniques listed.

Summary and Resources

5. b. 6 months Infants as young as 6 months old can successfully complete the deferred-imitation task, demonstrating that they have explicit memory.

6. c. Child experts had better chess memory. Child chess experts, because of their greater chess knowledge, were better able to recall chess-relevant information than adult novices. These same children had no advantage on the digit-span test, since it was unrelated to chess knowledge.

7. a. script Scripts are generalized memories for events, such as baking cookies or going on vacation. They represent summaries of several similar experiences.

8. b. rehearsal Rehearsal, which involves repeating presented information in order to remember it, occurs first at around age 7. However, children may not initially execute it well, and thus it might not benefit recall.

9. d. elaborative An elaborative parental style leads children to better remember the past because they are more involved in the construction of a story about a previous event.

10. b. 4 Earliest first memories are typically of events that occurred around age 4, although some have reported even earlier memory.

11. a. source-monitoring skills Source monitoring is a metamemory skill that involves knowing the source of infor- mation, such as whether it was actually experienced.

12. c. high stress; dissociative symptoms In a memory test for a medical procedure, children with high levels of stress and dissociative symptoms recalled less of the event 5 days later, compared to other children.