Activating learned exemplars in children impairs memory for related exemplars in visual long-term memory

Abstract

A popular educational method when teaching children new information is encouraging children to activate previously learned information held in long-term memory. A potential downside of this practice is the considerable evidence that there are negative consequences of accessing long-term memory representations. Specifically, it has been shown that accessing information in long-term memory can actually impair related memories. This impairment has classically been demonstrated with verbal material (i.e., retrieval-induced forgetting) and more recently with visual material in adults (i.e., recognition-induced forgetting). The goal of the present study was to examine whether recognition-induced forgetting exists in visual long-term memory for children aged 6–10 years old, the age at which retrieval-induced forgetting appears to emerge. To this end, we presented children with an abbreviated, age-appropriate recognition-induced forgetting paradigm. If children suffer recognition-induced forgetting, practicing a subset of objects from a category of objects will impair memory for the other, non-practiced objects from the same category. The results showed that children across all ages showed impaired memory for non-practiced objects from practiced categories and no benefit from recognition practice for the younger children. These findings show that children's visual long-term memory is vulnerable to recognition-induced forgetting and does not appear to benefit from recognition practice.