Patricia J. Bauer

Separating the sheep from the goats: Differentiating global categories ☆

Abstract The nature of the conceptual categories that children have developed in the second year was studied in a series of experiments using an object-manipulation task. In the first two experiments, it was shown that by 18 months children have developed global conceptual categories of animals and vehicles without yet clearly differentiating basic-level categories within these domains. The basic-level categories were tested by using a series of contrasts: a low degree of contrast was provided by presenting the children with dogs versus horses and with cars versus trucks. A moderate degree of contrast consisted of dogs versus rabbits and cars versus motorcycles. A high degree of contrast consisted of dogs versus fish (or birds) and cars versus airplanes. A domain-level contrast of animals versus vehicles was included as well. From 18 to 30 months the children tended to respond categorically only on the global domain-level contrast and on the high-contrast basic-level distinctions. Not until 30 months did the children consistently differentiate the low and moderate basic-level contrasts. Experiment 3 replicated the finding of global animal and vehicle categories, using the widest possible range of exemplars. Experiment 4 extended the study of global categorization to the domains of plants, furniture, kitchen utensils, tools, and musical instruments. Global categorization was found for plants, furniture, and kitchen utensils, but not for tools and musical instruments. Experiment 5 found little evidence for basic-level categorization of plants, and only suggestive evidence for basic-level categorization in the domains of furniture and utensils. The data demonstrate the presence of a number of global conceptual categories from an early age, and suggest that at least in some domains (animals, vehicles, and plants) such categories develop before true basic-level distinctions are made.

Cognition assessment using the NIH Toolbox

Vision is a sensation that is created from complex processes and provides us with a representation of the world around us. There are many important aspects of vision, but visual acuity was judged to be the most appropriate vision assessment for the NIH Toolbox for Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function, both because of its central role in visual health and because acuity testing is common and relatively inexpensive to implement broadly. The impact of visual impairments on health-related quality of life also was viewed as important to assess, in order to gain a broad view of ones visual function. To test visual acuity, an easy-to-use software program was developed, based on the protocol used by the E-ETDRS. Children younger than 7 years were administered a version with only the letters H, O, T, and V. Reliability and validity of the Toolbox visual acuity test were very good. A 53-item vision-targeted, health-related quality of life survey was also developed.

What Do Infants Recall of Their Lives? Memory for Specific Events by One- to Two-Year-Olds.

Until as recently as a decade ago, it was widely believed that infants and children younger than age three were unable to recall the events of their lives. Several developments, including findings of representational competence in infants in the first year of life and evidence of long-term recall abilities in children as young as three, have led to revision of this assumption. Through application of the technique of elicited imitation of action sequences, my colleagues and I have gathered evidence that children in the one- to two-year age range are able to recall specific events. Within this age period, age is not the major determinant of whether an event will be recalled: Even 13-month-olds recall events after long periods of time. Children demonstrate event memory both nonverbally and verbally. Rather than by age, recall primarily is determined by what the child is asked to remember, the number of exposures to the event, and the availability of cues or reminders of the event. These findings have led to rejection of the traditional assumption of a mnemonically incompetent one- to two-year-old and provided impetus for identification of the factors that maintain the accessibility of early memories over the transition from infancy to early childhood.

Holding it all together: How enabling relations facilitate young children's event recall ☆

Abstract Although it is apparent that enabling relations in events facilitate ordered recall, the source of the advantage derived from them has been largely unexplored. One suggestion for the source of the advantage is that enabling relations actually reduce the mnemonic demands associated with remembering events characterized by them. This study investigated two means by which reduction in memory load could be accomplished. The first and strongest hypothesis, that enabling relations reduce memory load by allowing one to infer the temporal order of an event, rather than explicitly remember it, received little support (Experiment 1). Experiments 2 and 3 tested the second hypothesis: enabling relations reduce memory load by licensing the “chunking” of separate elements into an organizational unit. One implication of this suggestion, that aspects of events connected by enabling relations would be resistant to separation by other elements, was tested with 20- and 25-month-olds. In both experiments, unequivocal support for the hypothesis was obtained. Together, the results suggest that enabling relations in events facilitate ordered recall not by eliminating the necessity to remember temporal order explicitly, but rather by fostering the organization of to-be-remembered material, thereby increasing the amount of information that can be recalled.

Representation of the inner self in autobiography: Women's and men's use of internal states language in personal narratives

Adult women and men differ in the affective qualities of their autobiographical reports. In the present study, we tested whether gender differences in emotional content are apparent in memories of both the remote past and the recent past, as well as whether they extend to internal states other than emotion. A total of 48 women and 30 men provided written accounts of four events from early in life (events from before age 7) and four events from later in life (events from age 7 or later). The narratives were coded for mention of emotions, cognitions, perceptions, and physiological states. Women used more emotion terms in their descriptions of events from later in life, relative to men; across life phases, similar trends were observed for cognition and perception terms, but not for physiological states terms. The category of internal states terms was found to be more coherent for women than for men. Results are consistent with suggestions that females and males experience differential socialisation regarding expression of internal states.

Developments in Long-Term Explicit Memory Late in the First Year of Life Behavioral and Electrophysiological Indices

Coincident with developments in the temporal-cortical explicit memory network, long-term recall abilities are newly emergent late in the first year of human life. We recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) in 9-month-olds as an index of the integrity of the neural substrate underlying a task thought to reflect explicit memory, namely, deferred imitation. ERP measures of recognition memory 1 week after unique laboratory experiences predicted whether and how much infants recalled of the experiences 1 month later. The findings further imply that memory storage and consolidation processes are a major source of variability in long-term recall memory late in the first year of life.

Episodic Memory in 16- and 20-Month-Old Children: Specifics Are Generalized but Not Forgotten.

Three experiments tested (a) whether 1- to 2-year-olds generalize their knowledge of events to new instantiations and (b) one possible mechanism by which generalization is accomplished. In Experiment 1, 16- and 20-month-old children enacted 6 event sequences. One week later they were tested for delayed recall. At delayed testing the props used to enact one half of the events were replaced by novel, functionally equivalent props. Children in both age groups used the new props to enact the events, thereby demonstrating spontaneous generalization. Experiments 2 and 3 tested whether generalization is accomplished through forgetting of the specific details of the original event. At Session 1, 16- (Experiments 2 and 3) and 20-month-olds (Experiment 2) enacted 4 events

Constructing a past in infancy: a neuro-developmental account

The ability to recall the past is fundamental yet until relatively recently, infants were assumed to lack the capacity. Contrary to this perspective, non-verbal tests indicate that developments in recall are well underway by late in the first year of life; by the end of the second year, long-term recall is reliable and robust. New research combining electrophysiological and behavioral measures is identifying the loci of age-related changes: they are attributed to more effective and efficient encoding, consolidation and storage processes associated with developments in the temporal-cortical network that subserves recall. The emerging framework, which applies to episodic and autobiographical memory, highlights the essential developmental continuities in memory from infancy onwards and sheds new light on the phenomenon of childhood amnesia.

Coherence of Personal Narratives Across the Lifespan: A Multidimensional Model and Coding Method

Personal narratives are integral to autobiographical memory and to identity, with coherent personal narratives being linked to positive developmental outcomes across the lifespan. In this article, we review the theoretical and empirical literature that sets the stage for a new lifespan model of personal narrative coherence. This new model integrates context, chronology, and theme as essential dimensions of personal narrative coherence, each of which relies upon different developmental achievements and has a different developmental trajectory across the lifespan. A multidimensional method of coding narrative coherence (the Narrative Coherence Coding Scheme) was derived from the model and is described here. The utility of this approach is demonstrated by its application to 498 narratives that were collected in six laboratories from participants ranging in age from 3 years old to adulthood. The value of the model is illustrated further by a discussion of its potential to guide future research on the developmental foundations of narrative coherence and on the benefits of personal narrative coherence for different aspects of psychological functioning.

Explicit memory performance in infants of diabetic mothers at 1 year of age

The aim of the present research was to investigate the impact of abnormal fetal environment on explicit memory performance. Based on animal models, it was hypothesized that infants of diabetic mothers (IDMs) experience perturbations in memory performance due to exposure to multiple neurologic risk factors including: chronic hypoxia, hyperglycemia/reactive hypoglycemia, and iron deficiency. Memory performance, as measured by the elicited/deferred imitation paradigm, was compared between 13 IDMs (seven females, six males; mean age 365 days, SD 11) and 16 typically developing children (seven females, nine males; mean age 379 days, SD 9). The IDM group was characterized by shorter gestational age (mean 38w, SD 2), greater standardized birthweight scores (mean 3797g, SD 947), and lower iron stores (mean ferritin concentration 87C microg/L, SD 68) in comparison with the control group (mean gestational age: 40w, SD 1; mean birthweight: 3639g, SD 348; mean newborn ferritin concentration 140 microg/L, SD 46). After statistically controlling for both gestational age and global cognitive abilities, IDMs demonstrated a deficit in the ability to recall multi-step event sequences after a delay was imposed. These findings highlight the importance of the prenatal environment on subsequent mnemonic behavior and suggest a connection between metabolic abnormalities during the prenatal period, development of memory, circuitry, and behavioral mnemonic performance.