An Event-Related Potential Study of Item Recognition Memory in Children and Adults

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to contrast children's event-related potentials (ERPs) with those of adults in an item recognition memory task. Four-year-old children and adults were presented with pictorial images, one half of which had been previously shown, and were asked to indicate whether each picture had been seen before. In both samples, an old-new effect was found in the ERP, namely that responses to correctly recognized old pictures elicited more positive-going ERPs than responses to correctly rejected new pictures. However, there were differences between adults' and children's ERPs with respect to the asymmetric scalp distribution and the time course of the old-new difference. In adults, the ERP differences between old and new pictures were bilateral, whereas in children the differences had a tendency to be stronger over the right hemisphere. In addition, children's ERP effects for correct discrimination between old and new pictures began around 400 to 500 msec later than it did in adults. The similarities and differences between the child and adult findings are discussed in terms of developmental changes in cognitive abilities that may be mirrored through corresponding changes in ERPs.