Previous research has suggested that performance for items requiring memory-binding processes improves between ages 4 and 6 (J. Sluzenski, N. Newcombe, & S. L. Kovacs, 2006). The present study suggests that much of this improvement is due to retrieval, as opposed to encoding, deficits for 4-year-olds. Four- and 6-year-old children (N = 48 per age) were given objects, backgrounds, and object + background combinations to remember. Younger children performed equivalently to 6-year-olds during a working memory task for all types of memory questions but were impaired during a long-term memory task for the object + background combinations. Furthermore, this deficit was completely due to differences in false alarm rates, suggesting that separate analyses of hits and false alarms may be preferable to corrected recognition scores when studying memory development.

Episodic memory is defined as the ability to recall specific past events located in a particular time and place. Over the preschool and into the school years, there are clear developmental changes in memory for when events took place. In contrast, little is known about developmental changes in memory for where events were experienced. In the present research we tested 4-, 6-, and 8-year-old children’s memories for specific laboratory events, each of which was experienced in a unique location. We also tested the children memories for the conjunction of the events and their locations. Age-related differences were observed in all three types of memory (event, location, conjunction of event and location), with the most pronounced differences in memory for conjunctions of events and their locations. The results have implications for our understanding of the development of episodic memory, including suggestions of protracted development of the ability to contextualize events in their spatial locations.

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