From the earliest moments in their lives, infants begin to build memories about their past and accumulate knowledge about the world. In this article, we focus on the distinction between memory for "specific" events and memory for "general" information, and the ongoing debate about which type of memory provides the foundation…

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…

Episodic memory relies on discriminating among similar elements of episodes. Mnemonic discrimination is relatively poor at age 4, and then improves markedly. We investigated whether motivation to encode items with fine-grain resolution would change this picture of development, using an engaging computer-administered memory task in which a bird ate…

Spatial memory impairment is well documented in old age; however, less is known about spatial memory during middle age. We examined the performance of healthy young, middle-aged, and older adults on a spatial memory task with varying levels of spatial similarity (distance). On low similarity trials, young adults significantly outperformed…

The emergence of strategic verbal rehearsal at around 7 years of age is widely considered a major milestone in descriptions of the development of short-term memory across childhood. Likewise, rehearsal is believed by many to be a crucial factor in explaining why memory improves with age. This apparent qualitative shift in mnemonic processes has…

Typical aging is associated with diminished episodic memory performance. To improve our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms underlying this age-related memory deficit, we previously developed an integrated, cross-species approach to link converging evidence from human and animal research. This novel approach focuses on the ability to…

The concept of spreading activation describes how retrieval of one memory cues retrieval of other memories that are associated with it. This study explored spreading activation in 6-, 12-, and 18-month-old infants. Infants (n = 144) learned two tasks within the same experimental session; one task, deferred imitation (DI), is typically remembered…

During the first decade of life, there are marked improvements in mnemonic abilities. An important question from both a theoretical and applied perspective is the extent of continuity in the nature of memory during this period. The present longitudinal investigation examined declarative memory during the transition from toddlerhood to school age…

This study examined ability of first and fourth graders and adults to recall digits they heard while they were carrying out a visual task. Results suggested that each individual has a core memory capacity limit that can be observed in circumstances in which it cannot be supplemented by mnemonic strategies. The capacity limit increases with age…

This study obtained multiple measures of three factors (capacity, strategies, and metamemory) hypothesized to cause memory improvement with age among younger (ages 5 to 8) to older (ages 8 to 11) children. Results suggested that fit of the 3-factor model was statistically significantly better than a 1-factor, general memory model for both age…

Memory plasticity, or the ability to improve one's memory performance through instruction and training, is known to decline during adulthood. However, direct comparisons among middle childhood, adulthood, and old age are lacking. The authors examined memory plasticity in an age-comparative multisession training study. One hundred and eight…

Tested the pegword system as an aid to memory in four age categories (18-30, 31-45, 46-59, and 60-90) using familiar sayings as stimuli. Results showed improved recall equally in all groups, although age had a pronounced effect on absolute recall level. No group reported significant spontaneous use of visual imagery. (Author/ABL)

A total of 60 children four-, five-, and six-years-old were assigned to memory or control groups and told they could play with toys. Mnemonic mediators were identified on the basis of differences in the behavior of children given memory and play instructions. Use of mnemonic mediators differentiated groups at all ages and increased with age. (RH)

Results suggest that when memory strategies are used by young children, the mental effort expended on implementing the mnemonic reduces the amount of mental capacity available for other activities, resulting in only modest gains in memory performance. (PCB)

Assessed the influence of mnemonic and attentional aids on children's double-alternation learning, in a prediction situation in which subject had to learn to produce two consecutive responses of the alternate types. (Author/AJ)