Equal Learning Does Not Result in Equal Remembering: The Importance of Post-Encoding Processes

Abstract

Explanations of variability in long-term recall typically appeal to encoding and/or retrieval processes. However, for well over a century, it has been apparent that for memory traces to be stored successfully, they must undergo a post-encoding process of stabilization and integration. Variability in post-encoding processes is thus a potential source of age-related and individual variance in long-term recall. We examined post-encoding variability in each of two experiments. In each experiment, 20-month-old infants were exposed to novel three-step sequences in each of three encoding conditions: watch only, imitate, and learn to criterion. They were tested for recall after 15 min (as a measure of the success of encoding) and either weeks (1, 2, or 3: Experiment 1) or days (1, 2, or 4: Experiment 2) later. In each experiment, differential relative levels of performance among the conditions were observed at the two tests. The results implicate post-encoding processes are a source of variance in long-term recall.

Explaining variance in long-term recall in 3- and 4-year-old children: The importance of post-encoding processes

“…Informed by these findings, we selected 7 days (1 week) as the time at which to assess the post-encoding status of the memory trace and 1 month as the time at which to assess long-term recall. This time frame has proven to be informative during the infancy period in previous studies (e.g., Bauer et al, 2002;Bauer et al, 2011). Performance immediately after exposure to modeled sequences provided the measure of encoding.…”

“…Some of the most salient developmental As argued by Bauer (2006Bauer ( , 2007Bauer ( , 2008Bauer ( , 2009; see also Bauer et al, 2011), there is reason to expect that the post-encoding processes that transform labile patterns of neural activation into stable memory traces may be especially challenging for infants and children due to immaturity of the neural structures and, thus, the cognitive processes implicated in the transformation. 2 Both the medial-temporal lobes and the association cortices involved in consolidation undergo substantial postnatal developmental change throughout infancy and into the school years (e.g., Bauer, 2006;Bauer, in press;Nelson, 1997;Nelson, de Haan, & Thomas, 2006).…”

“…As a result, we may expect the processes of stabilization and integration to be less efficient and effective due to relative immaturity of the neural structures and network on which they depend. As such, post-encoding processes are an especially attractive, yet largely unexplored, candidate source of age-related and individual variability in long-term recall in development (Bauer, 2008;Bauer, 2009;Bauer et al, 2011).…”

“…Other studies in the infancy literature implicate post-encoding processes in the explanation for patterns of long-term recall. In the face of equal encoding, over a delay, infants display differences as a function of age (Bauer, 2005;Howe & Courage, 1997) and different stimulus types (Bauer et al, 2011) that are not explained by differences in retrieval processes. In summary, the few developmental studies that permit assessment of the possibility of differential post-encoding processes are consistent with the suggestion that they are a significant source of variance in long-term recall.…”

The psychology of intelligence analysis: Drivers of prediction accuracy in world politics.

“…Specifically, using both behavioral measures (e.g., Bauer, 2005;Bauer, Güler, Starr, & Pathman, 2011;Bauer et al, 1999) and measures of recognition obtained from event-related potentials (ERPs; Bauer et al, 2006;Bauer, Wiebe, Carver, Waters, & Nelson, 2003), my colleagues and I have probed the integrity of memory traces at various points This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.…”