‘I Remember When I Learned That!’ developmental and gender differences in children's memories of learning episodes

Eighty 4‐ to 9‐year‐old children answered factual knowledge questions in math, science and social studies during one‐on‐one interviews. Children indicated whether they had known or guessed each answer, and whether they (a) remembered the moment they learned the answer (episodic response) or (b) did not remember. For episodic responses, children provided memory narratives of learning episodes. One third of children's responses identified a learning episode. There was a developmental trend in which older children were more episodic than younger children, and when children knew and provided correct answers, there was a gender difference in which females were more episodic than males. Developmental and gender differences in the characteristics of memory narratives were also apparent. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

部分线索效应的作用机制

部分线索效应指让学习者学习一系列材料,在随后的测试阶段,给学习者提供先前学习的部分材料作为提取线索,让学习者回忆剩余的材料,其回忆成绩反而比没有提取线索时回忆成绩差。该效应的经典理论模型主要有组织干扰假说和提取抑制假说。由于它们有许多分歧之处,最近提出的双机制解释试图将二者融合,显示了诸多优势,但同时也存在一些缺陷。对双机制解释的进一步探索应侧重于确定组织干扰的量、探讨部分线索相对持久抑制作用的过程、界定组织干扰假说和提取抑制假说的关系,此外对部分线索效应在实际学习生活中的检验也很重要。     

Across-task long-term priming: Interaction of task readiness and automatic retrieval

When humans carry out actions in response to external stimulation, they acquire associations between the stimulus and the action it triggered. When the same stimulus is used in two different tasks, the retrieval of associations compiled in the competing task hampers current performance. Previous research suggests that this across-task priming depends on the task set for the preceding task remaining active across the switch of tasks and, thus, competing with the activations needed for the new task. We present two experiments investigating this notion. Participants switched between two semantic classification tasks. In Experiment 1, participants switched between short runs of the two tasks. Across-task priming was observed on switch and repeat trials. In Experiment 2, participants switched between longer runs of the two tasks. Across-task priming was markedly reduced on repeat trials. The data suggest that whether or not across-task priming affects behaviour after the switch trial depends, amongst others, on whether the task set necessary for the previous task spills into the repeat trials. The implications of these findings for mechanisms of cognitive and mnemonic control are discussed.     

Episodic retrieval processes take place automatically in auditory negative priming

Episodic retrieval processes involved in negative priming have been argued to be susceptible to the proportion of attended repetition trials. The more trials with the same prime and probe response, the more beneficial should it be to retrieve the prime episode, particularly its response. Retrieval of the prime episode, however, is task-inappropriate for ignored repetition trials, leading to negative priming. Correspondingly, visual negative priming increases with the proportion of attended repetition trials. We tested whether the same is true for the auditory modality. Three attended repetition proportion groups (0–25–50%) showed the same amount of negative priming. All groups committed more prime response errors in ignored repetition than in control trials, implying that prime response retrieval took place. Thus, retrieval processes in auditory negative priming appear to be automatic and cannot be influenced as easily as in the visual domain. In Experiment 2, the proportion of ignored repetition trials was manipulated (25–50–75%) to test whether auditory negative priming can be strategically manipulated at all. Similar to the visual modality negative priming was reduced with increasing proportion of ignored repetition trials. Differences between visual and auditory short-term memory are discussed to account for the results.     

Working memory and children's use of retrieval to solve addition problems

This study tested the hypothesis that children with high working memory capacities solve single-digit additions by direct retrieval of the answers from long-term memory more often than do children with low working memory capacities. Counting and reading letter span tasks were administered to groups of third-grade (mean age=107 months) and fourth-grade (mean age=118 months) children who were also asked to solve 40 single-digit additions. High working memory capacity was associated with more frequent use of retrieval and faster responses in solving additions. The effect of span on the use of retrieval increased with the size of the minimum addend. The relation between working memory measures and use and speed of retrieval did not depend on the numerical or verbal nature of the working memory task. Implications for developmental theories of cognitive arithmetic and theories of working memory are discussed.     

The role of phonological activation in the visual semantic retrieval of Chinese characters

The Stroop paradigm was used to examine the role of phonological activation in semantic access and its development in reading Chinese characters. Subjects (age 7-23 years) of different reading ability were asked to name the display color of Chinese characters. The characters were displayed in four different colors: red, yellow, blue and green. There were five types of relationships between a character and its display color: semantically congruent, phonologically congruent, semantically incongruent, phonologically incongruent and neutral. In addition to the classical Stroop effects, interference and facilitation effects from the homophones of color characters were also observed. The younger children and those with lower reading ability exhibited stronger Stroop effects. These findings suggest that phonological codes are activated automatically in Chinese character recognition. Furthermore, there is more phonological activation in the semantic retrieval of children in lower grades and those with lower reading ability.     

Episodic and semantic memory in bilingual and monolingual children

Although bilinguality has been reported to confer advantages upon children with respect to various cognitive abilities, much less is known about the relation between memory and bilinguality. In this study, 60 (30 girls and 30 boys) bilingual and 60 (30 girls and 30 boys) monolingual children in three age groups (mean ages 8.5, 10.5 and 12.5 years) were compared on episodic memory and semantic memory tasks. Episodic memory was assessed using subject-performed tasks (with real or imaginary objects) and verbal tasks, with retrieval by both free recall and cued recall. Semantic memory was assessed by word fluency tests. Positive effects of bilingualism were found on both episodic memory and semantic memory at all age levels. These findings suggest that bilingual children integrate and/or organize the information of two languages, and so bilingualism creates advantages in terms of cognitive abilities (including memory). Some sex differences were also found in episodic memory but not in semantic memory. This episodic memory difference was found with younger children.     

Memory for the Events of Early Childhood

There has been much recent interest in the phenomenon of childhood amnesia, the difficulty most adults have in recalling at least the first 3 years of life. In contrast, it has been shown that infants 18 months of age or less can retain information over long periods. Although there is no agreed-upon explanation of this paradoxical phenomenon, there are proposed biological, cognitive, and social-cognitive explanations. Distinguishing among these accounts involves investigating both adults' memories for childhood events and the mnemonicabilities of young children. These studies may not only reveal the reason why our earliest years are shrouded from us as adults, but also shed light on the memory processes that allow us a rich representation of the remainder of our personal past.     

三维物体图形的大小和颜色影响内隐和外显记忆的实验研究

本研究探索非言语信息的内隐记忆。用新异的不熟悉的三维物体图形作为实验材料,物体决定测验评价内隐记忆,是/否再认测验评价外显记忆,操纵学习(?)测验间物体图形的颜色(实验一)和大小(实验二),80名被试参加实验一,另80名参加实验二。结果发现:(1)存在着非言语信息的内隐记忆,且与外显记忆相分离;(2)新异的不熟悉三维物体的颜色和大小由外显记忆的情节系统所表征,而非属于结构表征系统,从而支持多重记忆系统假说。     

中学生时间洞察力特质与健康行为选择内隐偏好：未来情景性思维的作用

本研究采用经典内隐联想测验任务,研究了现在享乐、现在宿命和未来三种时间洞察力特质中学生的健康行为选择内隐偏好以及未来情景性思维在时间洞察力类型与健康行为选择内隐偏好中的调节作用。结果发现：未来特质中学生的健康行为选择内隐偏好高于现在享乐和现在宿命特质中学生;未来情景性思维水平在中学生时间洞察力类型与健康行为选择内隐偏好的关系中起调节作用,即未来情景性思维显著提高现在享乐和未来特质中学生的健康行为选择内隐偏好,而对现在宿命特质的作用不显著。本研究的发现表明未来时间洞察力特质是中学生选择健康行为的积极因素;未来情景性思维能促进现在享乐和未来时间洞察力特质中学生的健康行为选择内隐偏好。