Linking Episodes in Memory and Development

Emory University, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Like most psychological phenomena, learning and memory are influenced by many factors and undergo pronounced changes with development. Moreover, they interact with one another: what a child has learned in the past influences (though does not determine) what s/he remembers, and what a child remembers from an experience constrains what s/he learns from it. Although learning and memory are intimately linked, the fundamental question of how children connect individual episodes in time so that they contribute to the development of a general knowledge base has gone largely unexplored. The question is especially relevant as children enter the school years and find themselves in settings that demand that they integrate information that has been acquired at different times and in different contexts. The purpose of the proposed research is to initiate a systematic study of how information learned at different times becomes linked in memory. The research similarity of the elements of the separate episodes. These three aims are pursued in two experiments with children 5 to 6 years of age (kindergarten and first grade, respectively). The age range was selected because it is during this time that the demands of formal schooling are introduced, including the expectation that children will accumulate information over the course of a term, and be able to integrate it with information learned previously. The vehicle is a shared book reading, an activity in which children engage from infancy and from which they are expected to acquire knowledge. Learning and memory are linked: what a child learns influences what s/he remembers. Yet how children link individual episodes in time so that they contribute to the growth of a general knowledge base has gone largely unexplored. The question is especially relevant as children enter their school years where impaired ability to integrate information is associated with academic failure and poor mental health (including anxiety and depression). The proposed research initiates systematic study of developmental changes in the linkage of separate episodes in memory. 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