When Delays Improve Memory

Abstract

Memory is critical for learning, cognition and cognitive development. Recent work has suggested that preschool-aged children are vulnerable to catastrophic levels of memory interference, in which new learning dramatically attenuates memory for previously acquired knowledge. Work reported here investigates the effects of consolidation on children’s memory by introducing a 48- hours-long delay between learning and testing. In Experiment 1, the delay improved children’s memory and eliminated interference. Results of Experiment 2 suggest that this benefit of delays is limited to situations in which children are given enough information to form a complex memory structure. Results are discussed in relation to consolidation processes and memory development.

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

“…However, it may be that children benefit from more of delay interval to accurately connect new knowledge with its source. This is consistent with past research on memory binding, suggesting that children are better able to identify which stimuli are associated with each other after a 2-day delay than immediately (Darby & Sloutsky, 2015). It is also consistent with research on source monitoring showing that children are better able to accurately report on when their learning has occurred after a week's delay than immediately (Tang & Bartsch, 2012).…”

“…Yet, even this level of performance is surprising, given the difficulty of the task; children experienced two highly similar learning events and then were interviewed in one session, 1 week later, where they were asked not only about facts that they learned in the staged events but also about general knowledge facts that were not presented in either event. Thus, Bemis et al (2013) contained two elements-a delay and highly similar learning events-that have each been shown in literature on episodic memory (i.e., Scarf et al, 2013), source monitoring (i.e., Tang & Bartsch, 2012), and memory binding (Darby & Sloutsky, 2015) to hinder children's recall.…”

“…They found that when retrieval demands were lessened by testing children after every four pictures, rather than after every 12, 4-year-olds' and 6-year-olds' responses contained a similar number of false alarms (i.e., incorrect assertions that particular items had been paired together previously). Regarding the impact of a delay, Darby and Sloutsky (2015) found that preschoolers' ability to recall which pairs of objects belonged to a cartoon character was improved after a 2-day delay, only if the pairs contained an overlapping object (i.e., a hat and a bunny belonging to Mickey; the same hat and a lamp belonging to Pooh). This indicates that preschoolers may benefit from a delay when they need to retrieve a specific instance that forces them to rely on recall rather than recognition.…”

“…Are children best able to make the critical connection between a learning event and their own knowledge immediately, as adults are able to do? Or, as studies on memory binding in adults and children suggest (Darby & Sloutsky, 2015;Ellenbogen et al, 2007), do they benefit from a moderate delay to make this critical connection? By investigating the impact of different delay intervals on children's recall of learning, we sought to address these important theoretical and pedagogical questions.…”

“…Although in general, we might expect that with no reinforcement, the ability to retrieve a particular learning episode should decline over time in the natural pattern of decaying memories; some research (e.g., Darby & Sloutsky, 2015;Tang & Bartsch, 2012) lead to the opposite prediction, counter-intuitively suggesting that under some conditions, learning episodes may be better recalled following a delay than immediately after they occur. In the present manuscript, we report on two studies investigating the trajectory of young children's memories for learning episodes, comparing their ability to report the details of episodes in which they acquired factual information immediately afterwards or after a delay of several days.…”