Learning Strategy Differentially Impacts Memory Connections in Children and Adults

Autor/inn/en	Abolghasem, Zahra; Teng, Tiffany H.-T.; Nexha, Elida; Zhu, Cherrie; Jean, Cindy S.; Castrillon, Mariana; Che, Eric; Di Nallo, Eva V.; Schlichting, Margaret L.
Titel	Learning Strategy Differentially Impacts Memory Connections in Children and Adults
Quelle	In: Developmental Science, 26 (2023) 4, (16 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Schlichting, Margaret L.)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1363-755X
DOI	10.1111/desc.13371
Schlagwörter	Memory; Inferences; Learning Processes; Young Children; Young Adults; Age Differences; Developmental Stages + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Gedächtnis; Inference; Inferenz; Learning process; Lernprozess; Frühe Kindheit; Young adult; Junger Erwachsener; Age; Difference; Age difference; Altersunterschied
Abstract	Even once children can accurately remember their experiences, they nevertheless struggle to use those memories in flexible new ways--as in when drawing inferences. However, it remains an open question as to whether the developmental differences observed during both memory formation and inference itself represent a fundamental limitation on children's learning mechanisms, or rather their deployment of suboptimal strategy. Here, 7-9-year-old children (N = 154) and young adults (N = 130) first formed strong memories for initial (AB) associations and then engaged in one of three learning strategies as they viewed overlapping (BC) pairs. We found that being told to integrate--combine ABC during learning--both significantly improved children's ability to explicitly relate the indirectly associated A and C items during inference and protected the underlying pair memories from forgetting. However, this finding contrasted with implicit evidence for memory-to-memory connections: Adults and children both formed A-C links prior to any knowledge of an inference test--yet for children, such links were most apparent when they were told to simply encode BC, not integrate. Moreover, the accessibility of such implicit links differed between children and adults, with adults using them to make explicit inferences but children only doing so for well-established direct AB pairs. These results suggest that while a lack of integration strategy may explain a large share of the developmental differences in explicit inference, children and adults nevertheless differ in both the circumstances under which they connect interrelated memories and their ability to later leverage those links to inform flexible behaviours. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01