The Development of Memory - Moodle Version

Memory
development
Dr Jenni Mcgahan
Learning objectives
– To understand the memory system and various

memory processes
– To understand how different memory processes
develop over the life span
How good is your memory?
– You will now hear a list of words and I would like you to try and remember them
Rey-ostrich complex figure task
Memory systems
Working memory
Short-term memory
What are we born with?
– 4 days old babies look at their mothers faces for longer than a strangers
(Pascalis et al 1995)
– 1 month old infants prefer their mothers own voice to a stranger (Mehler, 1978)
Development of recollection in
childhood
Recollection is the conscious bringing to mind of information from an earlier encounter for
example, if I ask you which country I used as an example of semantic memory two slides ago
you would recall ‘France’
Recollection develops throughout childhood into adolescence. One study showed a 2-3 fold
increase between 7-14 years (experiment 1) and 11 year olds were more than twice as likely to
recollect correctly than 5 year olds. Changes in familiarity were minimal (Brainerd et al, 2004)
Another study replicated these findings with incremental increases in recollection in

participants aged 6-18 years (Ghetti & Angellini, 2008)
Ghetti and Angelini (2008)
– Participants - 6, 8, 10, 14, 18 year olds (n= 117)
– Stimuli – a set of 240 line drawings (animate and inanimate), 160 studied and
80 presented as lures in a yes/no recognition test
– Participants encoded stimuli using perceptual (80 items) or semantic priming

(80 items).
Ghetti and Angelini (2008)
– Recollection improved from childhood into adolescence after semantic

encoding only. Familiarity improved between 6-8 years regardless of priming.
– Recollection showed distinct developmental and functional characteristics.

My own research
– Research question: How do recollection and familiarity develop throughout

childhood and adolescence?
– Participants were aged 5-18 years
– Methodology – item recognition tasks, associative recognition tasks
My own research
– Research question: How do recollection and familiarity develop throughout

childhood and adolescence?
– Participants were aged 5-18 years
– Methodology – item recognition tasks, associative recognition tasks
Between 5-8 years recollection
performance increased significantly
Familiarity memory changed

very little between 5-18 years
Development of semantic memory in
childhood
- Compared to studies of episodic and recognition memory development, there
are much fewer studies exploring semantic memory development.
- It is thought that acquisition of semantic memories continues throughout
childhood and into adolescence.
- Semantic memory is measured via vocabulary acquisition (do children know the
meanings of words) reading and writing ability (have children learnt symbol
knowledge) and comprehension (via reading and writing).
- The acquisition of factual information can be measured using the verbal IQ scale
(VIQ) on Wechsler scales; vocabulary, information and comprehension
subscales.
Development of episodic memory
– Episodic memory is slow to develop in comparison to semantic

memory – childhood amnesia is the phenomenon that we have no
episodic memories before 2 years and infrequent memories between
2-5 years
– Average age of first episodic memory 3.5 years, range of 2-8 years
(Pillemer and White (1989)
– A study explored this in 3 and 4 year olds at a 7 year interval; 57% of 4
year olds provided an intact or fragmented version compared to 18%
of 3 year olds.
– Episodic is important for social interaction “how was school?”
Development of short-term memory
– Short term memory (STM) is our ability to hold information over

short periods of time.
– STM increases dramatically throughout early childhood.
– Phonological STM increases from an average of 2/3 items at age 4
years to approximately 6 items at 12 years (Hulme et al, 1984)
– Visuo-spatial STM increases substantially between 5 and 11 years,
by which time adult levels are achieved.
Why are these processes not fully
developed from birth?
Parts of brain that are involved in memory processing

develop throughout childhood, adolescence and even
into early adulthood.
The Medial Temporal Lobes (MTL), particularly the

hippocampus and its surrounding cortices and the prefrontal
cortex are essential for memory encoding, consolidation and retrieval
Case studies
• Henry Moliason
• In 1953, aged 27, had surgery
to stop epileptic seizures.
• The hippocampus was
removed
• Henry suffered anterograde
and retrograde amnesia
• Until this, we did not realise
the signifiance of the
hippocampus to memory
functioning.
Vargha-Khadem et al (1997)
– Three case studies of patients who suffered bilateral hippocampal

damage early in childhood.
– These patients could form semantic memories despite having
severe episodic memory impairments.
– We need an intact hippocampus to store and retrieve episodic
memories the surrounding cortices can sufficiently support the
storage and retrieval of semantic memories.
– Semantic memory is vital for learning in schools.
McGahan et al (in press)
• Children treated for a Medulloblastoma (type of brain tumour)

• Aged 4-16 years
• Familiarity memory was intact
• Recollection was impaired
• Free recall of stories was impaired
• Previously studies have shown that this group have damage to hippocampus
due to treatment with radiotherapy (Nagel, 2004)
Memory through the lifespan
– Older adults often report that their memories are impaired compared to when they were
younger. However, objective assessments show that there is not an overall drop in
memory performance:
- Semantic and procedural memory processes do not change from early to late adulthood.
Speed of retrieval is slower in older people.
– Dispute about when episodic memory processes start to decline some say 20 years (Li,
2004) others say not until 60-65 years (Ronnlund, 2005).
– Working memory processes decline in older adults (>55 years) (Ronnlund, 2006).
– Familiarity stays constant throughout life (Friedman, 2010).
– Encoding new information does take longer; learning can be slower in older people
Can you remember the shape I asked
you to draw earlier?
When the 3 children in Vargha-Khadem
study completed this task…
Taken from Differential Effects of Early

Hippocampal Pathology on Episodic and
Semantic Memory
F. Vargha-Khadem,* D. G. Gadian, K. E.
Watkins, A. Connelly, W. Van Paesschen,
M. Mishkin (1997) Science Jul
18;277(5324):376-80
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/
sci/277/5324/376.full.pdf
Can you recall the word list that you
heard at the start?
What have you learnt?
Summary of lecture
– Memory is an umbrella term for a number of functionally

distinct systems
– The different memory systems have different developmental
trajectories
– The medial temporal lobe and hippocampus are essential for
memory function
– Damage to these brain regions can impact the memory systems
differently.
Further reading
– Berk, L (2014) Development Through the Lifespan. New Jersey,

Pearson.
– Gathercole, S. E. (1998). The development of memory. The Journal
of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 39(1), 3-
27.
– Tulving, E. (1972). Episodic and semantic memory. Organization of
memory, 1, 381-403.
References:
– Ghetti, S., & Angelini, L. (2008). The development of recollection and familiarity in childhood and adolescence: Evidence from the dual ‐process signal detection model. Child
development, 79(2), 339-358.
– Friedman, D., de Chastelaine, M., Nessler, D., & Malcolm, B. (2010). Changes in familiarity and recollection across the lifespan: an ERP perspective. Brain Research, 1310, 124-
141.
– Hulme, C., Thomson, N., Muir, C., & Lawrence, A. (1984). Speech rate and the development of short-term memory span. Journal of experimental child psychology, 38(2), 241-
253.
– Mehler, J., Bertoncini, J., Barrière, M., & Jassik-Gerschenfeld, D. (1978). Infant recognition of mother's voice. Perception, 7(5), 491-497.
– Nagel, B. J., Palmer, S. L., Reddick, W. E., Glass, J. O., Helton, K. J., Wu, S., ... & Mulhern, R. K. (2004). Abnormal hippocampal development in children with medulloblastoma
treated with risk-adapted irradiation. American Journal of Neuroradiology, 25(9), 1575-1582.
– Pascalis, O., de Schonen, S., Morton, J., Deruelle, C., & Fabre-Grenet, M. (1995). Mother's face recognition by neonates: A replication and an extension. Infant Behavior and
Development, 18(1), 79-85.
– Vargha-Khadem, F., Gadian, D. G., Watkins, K. E., Connelly, A., Van Paesschen, W., & Mishkin, M. (1997). Differential effects of early hippocampal pathology on episodic and
semantic memory. Science, 277(5324), 376-380.
– Wilson, J. T., Scott, J. H., & Power, K. G. (1987). Developmental differences in the span of visual memory for pattern. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 5(3), 249-
255

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Memory

– To understand the memory system and various

Another study replicated these findings with incremental increases in recollection in

– Participants - 6, 8, 10, 14, 18 year olds (n= 117)

– Participants encoded stimuli using perceptual (80 items) or semantic priming

– Recollection improved from childhood into adolescence after semantic

– Recollection showed distinct developmental and functional characteristics.

– Research question: How do recollection and familiarity develop throughout

– Research question: How do recollection and familiarity develop throughout

Familiarity memory changed

– Episodic memory is slow to develop in comparison to semantic

– Short term memory (STM) is our ability to hold information over

Parts of brain that are involved in memory processing

The Medial Temporal Lobes (MTL), particularly the

– Three case studies of patients who suffered bilateral hippocampal

• Children treated for a Medulloblastoma (type of brain tumour)

Taken from Differential Effects of Early

– Memory is an umbrella term for a number of functionally

– Berk, L (2014) Development Through the Lifespan. New Jersey,

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