Lifespan memory development

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Lecture 914-01-2008

• Lifespan memory development

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Plan

• Traditional research
• Cognitive theories
• Infancy
• Childhood
• Old age
• Exceptional and expert memory

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Traditional research - conditioning

• The first to appear are reactions to stimuli
  experienced by the balance modality
• Next appear reactions to visual and auditory
  stimuli
• With age the speed of conditioning grows up
• Reactions to verbal stimuli appear later in
  development

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Traditional research delayed reactions

• The development of delayed reactions consists in
  a systematic growth of
• The maximal time of delay
• The number of hidden objects possible to find
• First the location is taken into account, next
  the shape, color and size of the container

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Traditional research first memories

• Memory starts working in fetal life after birth
  newborns recognize their mothers voice, stories
  and language
• First elaborated memories come from the age 2-4
• Infants remember for some time events from their
  own life, egg. toys, excursions

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Traditional research development of the span
and duration of memory

• Short-term memory span changes with age
• 2 years 2 elements
• 3 years 3 elements
• 7 years 5 elements
• 13-15 years 7 elements
• With age the duration of information storage in
  memory grows up

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Traditional research voluntary and involuntary
memory

• Infants and young children encode in an
  involuntary, unintentional way
• When asked to remember, they are not able to act
  accordingly and their results are worse as
  compared with unintentional memorizing
• School learning provokes the development of
  intentional memorizing, which gives better
  results with large amounts of information

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Traditional research summary

• Researchers were interested in simple memory
  functioning
• The main goal was to compare young childrens
  performance with adults performance
• Children appear as worse versions of adults
• Research results demonstrate especially
  quantitative differences between children and
  adults

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Relations between age and memory performance
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Cognitive perspective strategies

• In tasks requiring strategy use, young children
  have very low results as compared with older
  children and adults
• In non-strategic tasks, like recognition or
  implicit memory tests, research do not show
  differences between young and older children
• With age memory strategies are used more often
• The main developmental achievement is the ability
  to efficiently chose the strategy as a function
  of the task

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Cognitive perspective strategic deficits

• Pre-strategic behaviors
• Production deficit
• Mediation deficit
• With age the repertoire of strategies becomes
  larger following developmental trends are noted
• from simple to complex strategies
• from external to internal strategies
• from surface to deep strategies
• the control of cognitive processes becomes
  stronger and more efficient

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Cognitive perspective metacognition

• Metacognition introspective knowledge about
  cognitive processes
• Metamemory sensitivity the awareness that some
  situations require intentional behavior in order
  to memorize or retrieve from memory
• Metamemory includes also knowledge about factors
  affecting the results of memory tasks
  individuals features, situation, tasks,
  strategies, and the interaction of all those
  factors
• Metacognitive deficits

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Cognitive perspective semantic elements of
memory development

• Knowledge as an important factor influencing the
  course and results of memory processes
• Young children have worse results because they
  lack knowledge base for efficient coding
• Are young children able to use semantic coding?
• Research comparing children and adults chess and
  dinosaurs

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System of knowledge about dinosaurs in a young boy
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Influence of domain of interest on memory span in
children and adults
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Old age and memory neurological and cognitive
changes

• Neural conduction speed becomes lower
• Decline in frontal lobes
• Decline in the dopamine system
• Decline in temporal lobes
• Speed theories general slowing in old age
• Working memory reduced capacity
• Inhibitory deficits
• Changes in the ability to self-initiate cognitive
  processing

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Old age and memory decline

• Working memory
• Explicit memory performance, especially in
  laboratory tasks
• Declarative, episodic memory for private and
  public events
• Source monitoring
• Prospective memory, especially in laboratory
  tests
• Negative transfer becomes stronger, positive
  transfer weaker
• Proactive and retroactive interference is stronger

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Old age and memory what does not change?

• Performance in tasks requiring implicit memory
• Metacognition
• Earlier acquired skills
• Prospective memory in natural settings

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Old age and memory some things may even improve

• Long-term sensory memory
• Semantic memory and especially results in
  vocabulary tests
• Memories from infancy and young age especially
  the reminiscence bump
• Expert achievements

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Exceptional memory

• Anecdotic cases descriptions
• First scientific research with memory
  calculators Inaudi, Diamandi, Krieger,
  Finkelstein
• The best known memorist Szereszewski
• Contemporary exceptional memory case studies VP,
  Aitken, Bubbles P., Rajan Mahadevan, TM, TE

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Exceptional memory innate or trained?

• Ericssons skilled memory theory SF
• Memory in experts
• Chess players
• Waiters
• Taxi drivers

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Factors influencing exceptional memory

• Innate memory abilities
• Eidetic imagery
• Synesthesia
• Efficient encoding and retrieving strategies use
• Training
• Interest

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How to improve memory?

• Pharmacology
• Conditions for a comfortable brain work
• Mnemonics
• Metacognitive knowledge and skills
• Memory strategies training
• Cognitive activity