Development Of Declarative Memory Research Articles

Chapter 17 - Memory: Normative development of memory systems

During the past decades, abundant behavioral, clinical, and neuroimaging data have shown several memory systems in the brain. A memory system is a type of memory that processes a particular type of information, using specific mechanisms, with distinct neural correlates. What we call memory is therefore not a unitary capacity but a collection of distinct systems. From a developmental perspective, each memory system has its own developmental course. This explains the heterogeneity of children's mnemonic competencies: for example, 3-year-olds learn many new words and concepts every day but have trouble recalling in detail an event that happened the week before. In this chapter, we sum up major findings regarding the development from infancy to early adulthood of the main memory systems. Specifically, we report recent data regarding the development of declarative memory (i.e., episodic and semantic memory), and the relationship between the maturation of their neural correlates and the phenomena of infantile and childhood amnesia. We conclude by indicating some of the possible avenues for future research.

Medial temporal lobe memory in childhood: developmental transitions

The medial temporal lobes (MTL) support declarative memory and mature structurally and functionally during the postnatal years in humans. Although recent work has addressed the development of declarative memory in early childhood, less is known about continued development beyond this period of time. The purpose of this investigation was to explore MTL-dependent memory across middle childhood. Children (6 -10 years old) and adults completed two computerized tasks, place learning (PL) and transitive inference (TI), that each examined relational memory, as well as the flexible use of relational learning. Findings suggest that the development of relational memory precedes the development of the ability to use relational knowledge flexibly in novel situations. Implications for the development of underlying brain areas and ideas for future neuroimaging investigations are discussed.

Memory development throughout the second year: Overall developmental pattern, individual differences, and developmental trajectories

The present three-wave longitudinal study analyzed the development of declarative memory in N = 92 infants (12-, 18- and 24-month-olds) using a deferred imitation task. As expected, overall memory performance improved throughout the second year. Previous research is also replicated insofar as stability of inter-individual differences was low to moderate within this age range. In addition, cluster analyses identified two developmental groups showing different growth and different stability patterns. Multivariate analyses revealed specificities in language and self-development in these two developmental groups having different developmental trajectories.

Neurocognitive Development of Declarative Memory

Neurocognitive Development of Declarative Memory

The Color Object Association Test (COAT): The Development of a New Measure of Declarative Memory for 18- to 36-Month-Old Toddlers

Few methods exist to measure declarative (explicit) memory in children during the toddler and preschool stages of development. We report the development and psychometric properties of a new measure of declarative memory for this age group, the Color Object Association Test (COAT). In pilot testing and large scale application of the test, the COAT was demonstrated to be a reliable and a valid measure of declarative memory for healthy children ages 18–36 months, living in a disadvantaged community. The test shows a linear developmental trajectory, which allows longitudinal examination of the development of declarative memory in children.

Toward a neuro‐developmental account of the development of declarative memory

The study of the biological bases of memory has a long history. Based on research with patients with specific lesions and disease, animal models, and neuroimaging studies, the neural substrate that supports declarative memory in adults has been relatively well articulated. By contrast, studies of the neural bases of memory in development is in its infancy. Yet joint consideration of the processes involved in building a memory trace, and of the time course of development of the neural structures involved, has contributed to the generation of specific predictions regarding the sources of age-related change. Specifically, there are suggestions that in infancy and very early childhood, encoding and consolidation processes account for substantial age-related variance in long-term declarative memory. With development, the locus of age-related variability in the vulnerability of memory traces shifts to the later-stage processes of memory storage and retrieval. These insights are afforded by consideration of multiple levels of analysis, from the biological to the behavioral.

Exploring memory in infancy: deferred imitation and the development of declarative memory

Imitation is an important means by which infants learn new behaviours. When infants do not have the opportunity to immediately reproduce observed actions, they may form a memory representation of the event which can guide their behaviour when a similar situation is encountered again. Imitation procedures can, therefore, provide insight into infant memory. The deferred imitation paradigm requires a modelled action to be reproduced following a delay, without prior motor practice. As such, deferred imitation procedures have been proposed to tap declarative memory abilities in non-verbal populations such as infants. Contrary to the popular belief that infants form sparse or ill-defined memories, deferred imitation research reveals that infants store and retrieve highly detailed memory representations. The specificity of detail encoded into the representation can, however, cause memory retrieval to fail at young ages. Developing the ability to identify event components which are central (the target stimulus) versus details which are peripheral (the exact context in which learning occurred) is therefore an important aspect of memory development. Using deferred imitation procedures to study the transition from constrained to flexible memory representations can thus facilitate our understanding of the development of declarative memory during the infancy period. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Stability, Growth, and Decline in Adult Life Span Development of Declarative Memory: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Data From a Population-Based Study.

Five-year changes in episodic and semantic memory were examined in a sample of 829 participants (35-80 years). A cohort-matched sample (N=967) was assessed to control for practice effects. For episodic memory, cross-sectional analyses indicated gradual age-related decrements, whereas the longitudinal data revealed no decrements before age 60, even when practice effects were adjusted for. Longitudinally, semantic memory showed minor increments until age 55, with smaller decrements in old age as compared with episodic memory. Cohort differences in educational attainment appear to account for the discrepancies between cross-sectional and longitudinal data. Collectively, the results show that age trajectories for episodic and semantic memory differ and underscore the need to control for cohort and retest effects in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, respectively.

The development of declarative memory in human infants: Age-related changes in deffered imitation.

The development of declarative memory in human infants: Age-related changes in deffered imitation.

The development of declarative memory in human infants: age-related changes in deferred imitation.

In 2 experiments, deferred imitation procedures were used to trace age-related changes in declarative memory by human infants over the first 2 years of life. An adult modeled 3 actions with an object, and infants' ability to reproduce those actions was assessed 24 hr later. Some infants were tested with a new object or in a new context relative to the original demonstration. Changes in the context disrupted the performance of 6-month-olds but had no effect on the performance of 12- and 18-month-olds. Changes in the object disrupted the performance of 6- and 12-month-olds but had no effect on the performance of 18-month-olds. This age-related increase in representational flexibility may account for the decline of childhood amnesia during the 3rd year of life.

On the development of declarative memory.

In the visual paired-comparison task, which has been used to demonstrate memory abilities in human infants, Ss view pairs of pictures and then view new pictures paired with old ones. Memory is demonstrated when Ss spend more time looking at new pictures than at old ones. In a series of studies involving amnesic patients and normal Ss, the authors evaluated what kind of memory is exhibited in this task. The results suggest that performance ordinarily depends on the brain structures essential for declarative memory. These and other findings suggest that the visual paired-comparison test also depends on declarative memory when the task is given to human infants. Thus, successful performance on this task by infants probably reflects an early capacity for declarative memory. The relevance of these findings to the phenomenon of infantile amnesia is discussed.

On the development of declarative memory.

On the development of declarative memory.