Work

Understanding relational binding in early childhood: Interacting effects of overlap and delay

Year: 2020

Type: article

Abstract: Episodic memories typically share overlapping elements in distinctive combinations, and to be valuable for future behavior they need to withstand delays. There is relatively little work on whether children have special difficulty with overlap or withstanding delay. However, Yim, Dennis, and Sloutsky (Psychological Science, 2013, Vol. 24, pp. 2163-2172) suggested that extensive overlap is more problematic for younger children, and Darby and Sloutsky (Psychological Science, 2015, Vol. 26, pp. 1937-1946) reported that a 48-h delay period actually improves children's memory for overlapping pairs of items. In the current study, we asked how children's episodic memory is affected by stimulus overlap, delay, and age using visual stimuli containing either overlapping or unique item pairs. Children aged 4 and 6 years were tested both immediately and after a 24-h delay. As expected, older children performed better than younger children, and both age groups performed worse on overlapping pairs. Surprisingly, the 24-h delay had only a marginal effect on overall accuracy. Although there were no interactions, when errors were examined, there was evidence that delay buffered memory for overlapping pairs against cross-contextual confusion for younger children.

Source: Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105152

Authors: Susan L. Benear, Chi T. Ngo, Ingrid R. Olson, Nora S. Newcombe

Institutions: Temple University, Max Planck Institute for Human Development

Language: English

Topic: Memory Processes and Influences

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: bronze

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