Week 8 – Memory Development

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Week 8; Memory

Atkinson & Shiffrin’s model revisited

Information Processing System(Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968)

Sensory Register

Input from outside

AttentionWorking memory:

holds info for short time; can do stuff with it

Response : via recognition or recall

Executive Functions: plan and perform each step of info processing

Long-term memory: Permanent store of info; knowledge about world; past events; procedures; Meta-knowledge

Storage

Retrieval

Week 8; Memory

Atkinson & Shiffrin’s model revisited Long-term memory includes declarative

and procedural memory Declarative composed of episodic and

semantic; Focus is on the declarative part of memory

Memory is not one thing, and resides in different areas

Relevant Definitions

RecallFree – straight remembering with no helpCued – some kind of “hint” given

RecognitionSimilar to cued recall, but less of a hint

Location memoryA-not-BSpatial span

1

6

3

5

4 2

7

89

Corsi Blocks task

Relevant Definitions

Recall Free – straight remembering with no help Cued – some kind of “hint” given

Recognition Similar to cued recall, but usually a choice involved

Location memory A-not-B Spatial span

Context-independent learning Kinds of tasks usually tapped in lab work

Infantile Amnesia We don’t tend to have very early memories:

Why? Vygotsky’s theory

Learning with parent’s and teacher’s help Piaget’s Theory

Lack of symbolic thought “Cognitive Structures” aren’t in place to develop

memories Information-Processing

Can’t attend efficiently; language allows top-down processing

Fuzzy-Trace Theory

Favoured explanations…

Lack of correspondence between encoding mechanisms and later retrieval cues

Brain structures not yet in place Lack of sense of self

Memory in Babies

Was once thought to be impossible Rovee-Collier and colleagues’ mobile paradigm Used conditioning paradigm with 2 month olds 3 phases:

Baseline (3 minutes) Training (9 minutes) Retention (after a delay of hours to days)

www.wwnorton.com/psychsci/activity/ch11_activity1.htm

Memory in Babies 2

Babies as young as 3 months have shown retention up to 2 weeks

Babies younger than 2 months for shorter times (a few days)

Context is important in this task Environment specificity

Crib and room variations Mobile specificity

Visual Pop-out effect

T T T T T T

P

P P P P P P

T

R R R R R R

P

P P P P P P

R

Memory in Babies 3 A-not-B task (Diamond)

Must impose longer and longer delays to elicit error with age: related to memory for location

Sequencing of mobiles Will remember 3 mobiles in particular order they

were presented Deferred Imitation

Barr, Vieira, & Rovee-Collier (2001) Showed imitation in 6-month-olds Showed priming and association memory for this

imitation

Implicit Memory

Exercise

Complete the word stems

awa___ sno___

dro___ ste___

mon___ cri___

ban___ rec___

cus___ ben___

Implicit Memory

Exercise Refers to incidental learning that occurs when

you are not trying to learn Does not seem to change much over lifespan

Children in learning pictures: explicit memories improve, implicit do not (i.e. always pretty good)

E.g. habituation / dishabituation

Event Memory

Script-based memory develops around 3; this is when children recognize relevant aspects of an event

They will remember repeated events, rather than isolated ones

However, more significant events can be remembered with prompting and questioning Liwag & Stein, 1995 Burgwyn-Bailes, Baker-Ward, Gordon, & Ornstein, 2001

Source-monitoring

Children have trouble remembering who said what

“I did it” biasDoll and dollhouse tasks

Eyewitness Testimony - adults

Adults are bad witnesses!Class e.g.Loftus’ work

Adults susceptible to suggestionBransford & FranksAge regression therapy

Spanos, Burgess, Burgess, Samuel, & Blois, 1999

68/78 participants had false recall, and nearly half reported very strong memories of the day after birth

Eyewitness Testimony

Very young children won’t volunteer information

Will give info when asked specific questions

BUT risk of false information goes up, esp. in younger kidsWith age, amount of false info goes downFuzzy-Trace theory

Can be susceptible to suggestion Ceci & Bruck, 1993:

88% preschoolers susceptible to suggestion

Source-monitoring is a problem againRepeated questioning may lead to false info.Design of questions is important

Poole & Lindsay, 1993

Eyewitness, continued

Young children can acquire false memories

But must be plausible Can’t predict one kind of memory from

another Factors affecting false recall:

Knowledge base Characteristics of the interview process

Should we use children as eyewitnesses given susceptibility?

Yes, but not under 5(although may be ok younger, depending on

trauma involved)

Suggestions for using Child Witnesses

1. Ask non-leading questions

2. Limit number of times they are interviewed *

3. “I don’t remember” is ok

4. Remain friendly and patient

5. Avoid family presence if topic is sensitive

6. Maybe use a videotape of early interview

7. Avoid props

Factors affecting children’s memory

Knowledge-base Older children always remember more than younger,

even if no structure is imposed: they know more If they know more about topic, they will remember

more (applies to young and old) The more knowledge they acquire, the more likely

they are to make unlikely connections and remember

Personal Relevance Classmates example

Metamemory What children know about memory and memory

processes 3 stages of remembering:

Diagnosis Treatment Monitoring

Very young children overestimate what they know about the treatment phase, don’t think strategy will help

Children don’t spontaneously use a strategy until they are 10-12 years old, indicating lack of metamemory knowledge

Memory-Metamemory Connection

Could be that improvements in memory retrieval leads to value placed on strategies, resulting in increased metamemory knowledge

Maybe increased understanding of memory leads to strategy usage, and hence better retrieval

Relationship seems to be an interaction

Lifespan Stability of Memory

Implicit memory for benign events is in place quite early, as seen in infant research, and does not show age-related advances or declines

Strategy use increases with age, indicating that explicit memory develops, and declines in old age

Given than memory abilities vary according to task, seems to be domain-specific ability, with different abilities developing at different times

Lifespan changes in span

Different span measures elicit different lifespan patterns (my dissertation )Corsi blocksSequencing span (forward digit for kids)Auditory working memory task

Age Corsi

Blocks**

Span**

(Digit* or

Sequencingτ)

Auditory

WM **

5 year olds

(N=31)

5.5

(0.3)

6.9

(1.8)

6.2

(1.4)

10.7

(5.1)

19-24 year olds (N=32)

21.4

(1.7)

8.2

(1.6)

17.3

(4.7)

30.5

(4.6)

40-45 year olds (N=33)

42.4

(2.6)

7.3

(1.6)

15.8

(4.3)

29.1

(4.8)

60-65 year olds

(N=32)62.4

(2.6)

6.8

(1.3)

14.6

(3.9)

26.6

(5.1)

Mean scores on span tasks

Review Exercise on Memory

1. Big name in baby memory with mobiles? ________________

2. What develops first, scripts or specific events?3. Can be created in young children through

repeated questioning_______________4. True or false: There is no evidence of age-

related changes in explicit memory.5. Which of the following helps retrieval most:

Free recall or cued recall?