Episodic memories are not veridical records of our lives, but rather are better described as organized summaries of experience. Theories and empirical research suggest that shifts in perceptual, temporal and semantic information lead to a chunking of our continuous experiences into segments, or 'events'. However, the consequences of these contextual shifts on memory formation and organization remains unclear. In a series of three behavioral studies, we introduced context shifts (or 'event boundaries') between trains of stimuli and then examined the influence of the boundaries on several measures of associative memory. In Experiment 1, we found that perceptual event boundaries strengthened associative binding of item-context pairings present at event boundaries.In Experiment 2, we observed reduced temporal order memory for items encoded in distinct events relative to items encoded within the same event, and a trade-off between the speed of processing at boundaries, and temporal order memory for items that flanked those boundaries. Finally, in Experiment 3 we found that event organization imprinted structure on the order in which items were freely recalled. These results provide insight into how boundary-and event-related organizational processes during encoding shape subsequent representations of events in episodic memory.

Episodic memories are not veridical records of our lives, but rather are better described as organized summaries of experience. Theories and empirical research suggest that shifts in perceptual, temporal and semantic information lead to a chunking of our continuous experiences into segments, or 'events'. However, the consequences of these contextual shifts on memory formation and organization remains unclear. In a series of three behavioral studies, we introduced context shifts (or 'event boundaries') between trains of stimuli and then examined the influence of the boundaries on several measures of associative memory. In Experiment 1, we found that perceptual event boundaries strengthened associative binding of item-context pairings present at event boundaries.In Experiment 2, we observed reduced temporal order memory for items encoded in distinct events relative to items encoded within the same event, and a trade-off between the speed of processing at boundaries, and temporal order memory for items that flanked those boundaries. Finally, in Experiment 3 we found that event organization imprinted structure on the order in which items were freely recalled. These results provide insight into how boundary-and event-related organizational processes during encoding shape subsequent representations of events in episodic memory.

Recent research has highlighted the need for a deeper understanding of the heterogeneity in trajectories of children's distress after acute pain exposure, moving beyond the group means of behavioural pain scores at a single timepoint. During preschool vaccinations, 3 distinct trajectories of postvaccination pain regulation have been elucidated, with approximately 75% of children displaying trajectories characterized by downregulation to no distress by 2 minutes postneedle and 25% concerningly failing to downregulate by 2 minutes. The objective of this study was to examine child and caregiver predictors of preschool children's postvaccination regulatory patterns. Our results indicated that higher child baseline distress, more caregiver coping-promoting verbalizations in the first minute after the needle, less coping-promoting verbalizations in the second minute, and more caregiver distress-promoting verbalizations in the second minute after the needle were associated with membership in the trajectories characterized by high distress. Furthermore, although all children's painrelated distress at various timepoints throughout the appointment was most strongly predicted by previous pain scores, different patterns of associations emerged depending on the trajectory exhibited. This research highlights both the need to minimize distress before the needle to avoid the highly distressed trajectory and the importance of considering the heterogeneity of trajectories of preschool pain responding when examining the factors that are associated with children's pain-related distress.

Background: Preterm pain is common in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), with multiple invasive procedures occurring daily.Objective: To review the psychosocial and neurobiological vulnerabilities of preterm infants and to provide an updated overview of non-pharmacological strategies for acute procedural pain in hospitalized preterm infants.Methods: We utilized a narrative review methodology, which also included a synthesis of key pieces of published systematic reviews that are relevant to the current work.Results and Conclusions: Preterm infants are uniquely susceptible to the impact of painful procedures and prolonged separation from caregivers that are often inherent in a NICU stay. Non-pharmacological interventions can be efficacious for mitigating procedural pain for preterm infants. Interventions should continue to be evaluated with high quality randomized controlled trials, and should endeavor to take into account the neurobiological and psychosocial aspects of preterm vulnerability for pain prevention and management strategies.

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