Work

Episodic memory and future thinking during early childhood: Linking the past and future

Year: 2015

Type: article

Abstract: Despite extensive examination of episodic memory and future thinking development, little is known about the concurrent emergence of these capacities during early childhood. In Experiment 1, 3-year-olds participated in an episodic memory hiding task ("what, when, where" [WWW] components) with an episodic future thinking component. In Experiment 2, a group of 4-year-olds (including children from Experiment 1) participated in the same task (different objects and locations), providing the first longitudinal investigation of episodic memory and future thinking. Although children exhibited age-related improvements in recall, recognition, and binding of the WWW episodic memory components, there were no age-related changes in episodic future thinking. At both ages, WWW episodic memory performance was higher than future thinking performance, and episodic future thinking and WWW memory components were unrelated. These findings suggest that the WWW components of episodic memory are potentially less fragile than the future components when assessed in a cognitively demanding task.

Source: Developmental Psychobiology

DOI: 10.1002/dev.21307

Authors: Kimberly Cuevas, Vinaya Rajan, Katherine C. Morasch, Martha Ann Bell

Institutions: University of Connecticut, University of Delaware, Virginia Tech

Language: English

Topic: Child and Animal Learning Development

Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institutes of Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Awards: G1084939735, G4892096122, Psychobiology of Cognitive Development, Attention and Memory: Mother-Child Psychophysiology and Behavior