儿童视听觉通道现实监控的发展

采用视觉图片和动画，听觉声音和词语任务，分别要求5岁（平均年龄66.5个月）、7岁（平均年龄80.8个月）和9岁（平均年龄117.2个月）共233名儿童在知觉和想象材料中作出来源判断，比较现实监控任务中视听觉通道之间和通道内部的发展差异。结果发现，在通道内部，不同实验材料对现实监控的影响不尽相同。在视觉通道内部：较小年龄儿童对图片的现实监控好于动画，较大年龄儿童对动画的现实监控好于图片；在听觉通道内部：儿童对声音的现实监控好于词。随着年龄的增长，对记忆现实监控的通道差异从视觉的图片刺激优势到图片和动画优势，到视觉刺激和声音对词的优势。文章还讨论了这些发展差异的可能原因，对我们理解个体记忆发展的规律和特点以及对实践的指导意义

The Development of Reality Monitoring in Visual and Auditory Modalities

Reality monitoring (RM) refers to the ability to discriminate internal memories from external events. It develops gradually from age 4 to 5, and reaches the level of adults at age 11~12. Some research on modality differences of reality monitoring showed a developmental trend, with the effect of visual passage being more predominant than the auditory passage. But little research investigated this trend using different materials in the same modality. The present study explored the developmental difference in visual and auditory passage on reality monitoring using different kinds of stimuli. Method In order to compare the developmental differences on reality monitoring between and within modalities, a total of 223 subjects including preschoolers (5yr.) and school children (7yr., 9yr.) were enrolled to make source discriminative reactions. The material of reality monitoring consisted of two visual stimuli including picture and flash, two auditory stimuli including natural sound and sounds of word, with the contents being matched. Results and discussion In visual condition, an ANOVA with 3 (age: 5 vs.7 vs. 9) × 2 (picture vs. flash) design showed that there was a significant interaction between age and material (F (2,110) = 3.31, p < 0.05). We found that performance on source discrimination of 5-year-old was poorer than that of 7- and 9-year-old children. No significant main effects of materials (picture or flash) were found in source discrimination tasks in the group of age 5 and 7, but performance on source discrimination tasks was better when using flash than when using picture for 9-year-old children. In auditory condition, similar analyses demonstrated significant main effects of age and materials. Performance on source discrimination tasks was better when using sound than when using words. Another ANOVA with 3 (age) × 4 (picture, flash, sound, and word) showed that there was a significant interaction between age and material (F (6,221) = 2.80, p = 0.012). Simple effect analysis showed that the predominance of source discrimination performance was as follows: RMpicture > RMword, RMflash = RMsound = RMword for 5-year-old children; RMpicture = RMflash > RMsound = RMword for 7-year-old children; and RMpicture = RMflash = RMsound > RMword for 9-year- old children. Conclusions The kind of stimuli did affect children’s source discrimination. First, the performance of picture source discrimination was better than that of flash for younger children and the performance of flash was better than that of picture for older ones in the visual condition. Second, the performance of sound discrimination was better than the word discrimination. Third, there existed a developmental trend of source discrimination: the reality monitoring of picture was predominant for 5-year-old children; the reality monitoring of picture and flash were predominant for 7-year-old children; and the reality monitoring of visual and sound were predominant for 9- year-old children