That was last time! The effect of a delay on children's episodic memories of learning new facts

Abstract

Accurately remembering how and when one's own learning occurs is an important metacognitive skill that matures during the early school years. In two studies, the impact of a delay on this ability was examined. In Study 1, 30 children in two age groups (4‐year‐olds and 5‐year‐olds) participated in two‐staged learning events and were interviewed immediately after each event about the facts they had learned in the events and about how they had acquired them. Children in both age groups learned the facts, but had significant difficulty reporting on their own learning. In Study 2, 79 children in the same age range participated in one staged learning event and were given similar interviews as in Study 1, either immediately after the event or after a 2‐ to 3‐day delay. Five‐year‐olds were more accurate in their memories of learning in the delay condition than in the immediate condition, but 4‐year‐olds showed no performance differences as a function of delay. Findings are interpreted in light of developmental literature on episodic memory, source monitoring, and memory binding. Highlights How does a delay interval between impact children's ability to accurately recall episodic memories of their own learning? Children completed staged learning events. Four‐ and five‐year‐olds struggled to recall instances of learning immediately, but five‐year‐olds improved after a delay. Five‐year‐olds, but not four‐year‐olds, appear to benefit from a moderate delay when recalling learning episodes. This could be due to developments in other metacognitive skills.

Effects of speech production training on memory across short and long delays in 5- and 6-year-olds: A pre-registered study

“…In a word-learning experiment, 3-to 5-year-olds showed a higher than chance of looking at a target image after a 1-week delay, but not at immediate testing or after a 5-minute delay (Sakhon et al, 2018). Similarly, when asking children about new information they learned, 5-year-olds showed better memory (higher accuracy) after a 2-to-3-day delay compared to immediate testing, whereas 4-year-olds showed similar performance at both immediate testing and after a 2-to-3-day delay (Bemis & Leichtman, 2019).…”

Children’s ability to edit their memories when learning about the environment from credible and noncredible websites

“…An increasingly popular explanation involves the role of binding processes in source monitoring (Bemis & Leichtman, 2019 ; Burns et al, 2016 ; Kovacs & Newcombe, 2006 ; Lloyd et al, 2009 ; Roberts et al, 2017; Sluzenski et al, 2006 ). In the work by Newcombe and colleagues, for example, there were few age differences when children identified objects or contextual information (location, scenes) they had seen before, but children aged 3–4 showed impairments relative to older children when recognizing item and context information concurrently (e.g., Did you see the pig in this square?).…”