Short- and long-delay consolidation of memory accessibility and precision across childhood and young adulthood

  • Childhood is a period when memory consolidation and knowledge base undergo rapid changes. The present study examined short-delay (overnight) and long-delay (after a 2-week period) consolidation of new information either congruent or incongruent with prior knowledge in typically developing 6- to 8-year-old children (n = 32), 9- to 11-year-old children (n = 33), and 18- to 30-year-old young adults (YA; n = 39). Both memory accessibility (cued recall of objects) and precision (precision of object placement) of initially well-learned object–scene pairs were measured. Our results showed that overnight, memory accessibility declined similarly in all age groups; memory precision improved more in younger children (YC) compared to older children (OC) and even declined in YA. After a 2-week period, both memory accessibility and precision became worse. Specifically, while age groups showed similar decline in memory accessibility, precision decline was less in YC than in OC and YA. The accessibility and precision of congruent and incongruent information changed similarly with consolidation in all age groups. Taken together, our results showed that, for initially well-learned information, YC have robust memory consolidation, despite their overall lower mnemonic performance compared to OC and YA, which is potentially crucial for stable and precise knowledge accumulation early on in development.

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Author:Iryna SchommartzORCiDGND, Angela M. KaindlORCiDGND, Claudia BußORCiDGND, Yee Lee ShingORCiDGND
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-856926
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001691
ISSN:0012-1649
Parent Title (English):Developmental psychology
Publisher:American Psychological Association
Place of publication:Richmond, Va. [u.a.]
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2024/03/21
Date of first Publication:2024/03/21
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2024/06/03
Tag:congruent and incongruent information; episodic memory; memory consolidation; object–scene pairs; prior knowledge
Volume:60
Issue:5
Page Number:13
First Page:891
Last Page:903
HeBIS-PPN:519156382
Institutes:Psychologie und Sportwissenschaften / Psychologie
Dewey Decimal Classification:1 Philosophie und Psychologie / 15 Psychologie / 150 Psychologie
6 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 61 Medizin und Gesundheit / 610 Medizin und Gesundheit
Sammlungen:Universitätspublikationen
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - CC BY-NC-ND - Namensnennung - Nicht kommerziell - Keine Bearbeitungen 4.0 International