Physiological Stress Responses and Children's Event Memory

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter focuses on the role children's physiological stress responses play in memory. It begins with a brief discussion of the rationale underlying the need to consider physiological stress responses when studying children's memory for emotional, primarily stressful, experiences. It then provides an overview of existing research that has included general measures of physiological arousal (i.e., heart rate), followed by a review of the biological systems that respond to stressful events and how arousal as driven by each of these specific systems may affect children's memory. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the need to consider developmental factors concurrent with physiological stress responses when studying children's memory for stressful events.