TY - JOUR
T1 - Thirty-five-month-old children have spontaneous memories despite change of context for retrieval
AU - Sonne, Trine
AU - Kingo, Osman Skjold
AU - Berntsen, Dorthe
AU - Krøjgaard, Peter
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Many parents have experienced incidents in which their preschool child spontaneously (i.e., without prompting of any kind) recall a previously experienced event. Until recently, such spontaneous memories had only been examined in non-controlled settings (e.g., diary studies). Using a novel experimental paradigm, a previous study has shown that when young children are brought back to a highly distinct setting (same room, same experimenter, same furnishing), in which they previously experienced an interesting event (a Teddy or a Game event), spontaneous memories can be triggered. However, exactly which cues (or combination of cues) are effective for the children’s memory, remains unknown. Here, we used this novel paradigm to examine the possible impact of contextual cues at the time of retrieval. We manipulated whether the 35-month-old children returned to the same room (n = 40) or to a different, but similarly furnished, room (n = 40) after one week. The results revealed that although the children returning to a new room produced fewer spontaneous memories than the children returning to the same room, the difference was not significant. Interestingly, despite changing rooms, the children still produced spontaneous memories. Taken together the results may shed new light on the mechanisms underlying childhood amnesia.
AB - Many parents have experienced incidents in which their preschool child spontaneously (i.e., without prompting of any kind) recall a previously experienced event. Until recently, such spontaneous memories had only been examined in non-controlled settings (e.g., diary studies). Using a novel experimental paradigm, a previous study has shown that when young children are brought back to a highly distinct setting (same room, same experimenter, same furnishing), in which they previously experienced an interesting event (a Teddy or a Game event), spontaneous memories can be triggered. However, exactly which cues (or combination of cues) are effective for the children’s memory, remains unknown. Here, we used this novel paradigm to examine the possible impact of contextual cues at the time of retrieval. We manipulated whether the 35-month-old children returned to the same room (n = 40) or to a different, but similarly furnished, room (n = 40) after one week. The results revealed that although the children returning to a new room produced fewer spontaneous memories than the children returning to the same room, the difference was not significant. Interestingly, despite changing rooms, the children still produced spontaneous memories. Taken together the results may shed new light on the mechanisms underlying childhood amnesia.
KW - Spontaneous memories
KW - childhood amnesia
KW - contextual cues
KW - episodic memories
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85027100730&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/09658211.2017.1363243
DO - 10.1080/09658211.2017.1363243
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 28795859
SN - 0965-8211
VL - 27
SP - 38
EP - 48
JO - Memory
JF - Memory
IS - 1
ER -