Julien Gross

The effect of drawing on memory performance in young children.

In Experiment 1, 32 5- to 6-year-old boys and girls participated in a unique event and were interviewed about that event I day later. Half of the children were asked to draw what happened during the event and half were asked to tell what happened. In both conditions, only childrens verbal behavior was scored. Children in the draw group were as accurate and reported more information than children in the tell group, especially in response to direct questions. In Experiment 2, 32 5- to 6-year-olds and 32 3- to 4-year-olds participated in the same event used in Experiment I and were interviewed I month later. The 5- to 6-year-olds in the draw group reported more information than the 5- to 6-year-olds in the tell group after the 1-month delay. Drawing did not, however, increase the amount of information reported by 3- to 4-year-olds. These findings have important theoretical implications for memory development and important practical implications for childrens eyewitness testimony.

To have and to hold: Episodic memory in 3- and 4-year-old children

Episodic memory endows us with the ability to reflect on our past and plan for our future. Most theorists argue that episodic memory emerges during the preschool period and that its emergence might herald the end of childhood amnesia. Here, we show that both 3- and 4-year-old children form episodic memories, but that 3-year-old children fail to retain those memories following a delay (Experiments 1 and 2). In contrast, 4-year-old children retained episodic memories over delays of 24 hr (Experiment 1) and 1 week (Experiment 3). This marked change in the retention of episodic memories between 3 and 4 years of age suggests that it is our ability to retain, rather than to form, an episodic memory that limits our ability to recall episodes from early childhood.

Eyewitness identification by 5-to 6-year-old children

Thirty-four 5-to 6-year-old children participated in a unique event in which children interacted with 4 individuals-2 for a long period of time and 2 for a brief period only. Each child was interviewed 1 to 2 days later with photographic lineups that contained the target individuals (target-present) or with lineups that did not (target-absent). When tested with target-present lineups, 5-to 6-year-old children were very accurate in identifying individuals with whom they had prolonged exposure, and were also accurate when asked to identify an individual who was present only briefly, but who was part of a salient aspect of the same event. In contrast, when tested with target-absent lineups, childrens performance was very poor regardless of whether the to-be-identified individual had been seen briefly or for a prolonged period of time. These data have important implications for eyewitness identification by young children in clinical and legal settings.

Age-related changes in the effect of ostracism

Research has shown that ostracism negatively affects four basic psychological needs: sense of belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful existence. Despite the high degree of social affiliation among adolescents, there has been relatively little empirical research on ostracism in this age group. Here we assessed age-related changes in the effects of ostracism on the four basic needs. Adolescents, emerging adults, and young adults were either included or ostracized using a computer game called Cyberball. Ostracism negatively affected participants’ basic needs, but the magnitude of the effect was larger in the two younger age groups. Although ostracism may be a potent experience for all individuals, adolescents and emerging adults may experience increased sensitivity to ostracism relative to their older counterparts.

Defining the boundary of childhood amnesia

When adults are asked to recall their earliest autobiographical memories most can recall nothing about their infancy and early childhood, a phenomenon commonly referred to as childhood amnesia. There is general consensus regarding the existence of childhood amnesia, but there remains considerable debate over its boundary. Most researchers have argued that the boundary of childhood amnesia occurs between the ages of 3 and 4 years, but in 1993 Usher and Neisser published a highly influential paper, which has subsequently been used to argue that the boundary may be as low as 2 years. In the present experiment we examined how changes in scoring criteria influence our estimates of the age of adults’ earliest memories. We conclude that some coding criteria are more valid than others and that the best estimates of childhood amnesia will include measures of free recall in addition to the specific questions that have dominated prior research in this area.

Repeated reminders inrease the speed of memory retrieval by 3‐month‐old infants

In two experiments, we examined the effect of repeated reminder treatments on the speed of memory retrieval by 3-month-old human infants. Infants were trained for two consecutive days to kick their feet to produce movement in an overhead mobile. Infants in the one-reminder condition received a 3 min reminder treatment 13 days after the conclusion of training. Infants in the two-reminder condition received one 3 min reminder treatment 6 days after the conclusion of training and a second reminder treatment 7 days later (i.e. 13 days following the conclusion of training). Infants in the no-reminder control condition were not exposed to the reminder prior to the long-term retention test. In the absence of a reminder treatment, infants exhibited complete forgetting during the long-term test. Infants exposed to one reminder exhibited retention when tested 24 h after their only reminder, but not when tested earlier. Infants exposed to two reminder treatments, on the other hand, exhibited retention when tested 1, 4 or 24 h after their second reminder treatment. We conclude that the opportunity to retrieve the memory on a prior occasion facilitated subsequent memory retrieval.

Young Children’s Recognition and Description of Their Own and Others’ Drawings

In the present study, we examined the symbolic content of 3- to 6-year-old children’s drawings. In Experiment 1A, children were asked to draw and their ability to recognize and describe their drawings was assessed following a delay. Three- to 4-year-olds and 5- to 6-year-olds recognized and provided consistent descriptions of their drawings after delays as long as 3 months and 6 months, respectively. In Experiment 1B, 5- to 6-year-olds recognized their drawings after a 1 year delay; the accuracy of their descriptions, however, decreased over the same delay. In Experiment 2, children accurately recognized and described not only their own drawings but also drawings that had been produced by another child. We conclude that young children can glean symbolic information from their own drawings and the drawings of others even when the actual graphic products are extremely lean or abstract.

Do children recall the birth of a younger sibling? Implications for the study of childhood amnesia

To establish the parameters of childhood amnesia, researchers often ask adults to recall events for which the exact date is known. One event of this kind is the birth of a sibling, but is this an event that children are likely to understand and encode at the time that it occurs? Here, we report the first examination of age-related changes in the content and accuracy of 2- to 5-year-old childrens accounts of the recent birth of a sibling. The interview procedure we used was identical to that used in a prior study with adults, so we had the opportunity to compare childrens recall with that of adults who were matched on age at the time of the birth. For both children and adults, the amount of information reported and the number of questions answered increased as a function of age at the time of the birth. Relative to children, adults reported more information and answered more questions. These findings suggest that the failure of adults to recall the birth of a younger sibling that occurred when they were very young may be due primarily to a failure to effectively encode the event in the first place.

Age-related changes in spreading activation during infancy.

The concept of spreading activation describes how retrieval of one memory cues retrieval of other memories that are associated with it. This study explored spreading activation in 6-, 12-, and 18-month-old infants. Infants (n = 144) learned two tasks within the same experimental session; one task, deferred imitation (DI), is typically remembered longer than the other task, visual recognition memory (VRM). At all ages, retrieval of the DI memory facilitated retrieval of the VRM memory, but the conditions under which this spreading activation occurred changed as a function of age. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the development of mnemonic networks during infancy and the value of studying infants for our understanding of memory more generally.

Drawing conclusions: The effect of instructions on children's confabulation and fantasy errors

Drawing is commonly used in forensic and clinical interviews with children. In these interviews, children are often allowed to draw without specific instructions about the purpose of the drawing materials. Here, we examined whether this practice influenced the accuracy of childrens reports. Seventy-four 5- and 6-year-old children were interviewed one to two days after they took part in an interactive event. Some children were given drawing materials to use during the interview. Of these children, some were instructed to draw about the event, and some were given no additional instructions at all. Children who were instructed to draw about the event, or who were interviewed without drawing, made few errors. In contrast, children who drew without being given specific instructions reported more errors that were associated with both confabulation and fantasy. We conclude that, to maximise accuracy during interviews involving drawing, children should be directed to draw specifically about the interview topic.