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Previous research has shown that with reduced attention at encoding, false recognition of critical lures for negative arousing DRM lists were higher than positive arousing lists. The current study extends this research to examine the role of attention for both arousing and nonarousing valenced false memory formation. Further, due to contradictory findings in past research, we examined attention at encoding using both within- (Experiment 1) and between-(Experiment 2) participants design. Participants were exposed to high and low arousing, valenced DRM lists under full and reduced attention conditions. Experiment 1 revealed that only negative arousing false memories were not affected by reduced attention at study, all other false memories decreased. In Experiment 2, although recognition of negative high arousing critical lures was higher, false memories increased in the reduced attention condition for all list types. Differences in attention during encoding affect the retrieval of emotional stimuli dependent on arousal and valence, however, our decision strategies can override the impact of this when it comes to retrieval.

We examined the impact of social feedback and objective false evidence on belief in occurrence, belief in accuracy, and recollection of an autobiographical experience. Participants viewed six virtual scenes (e.g., park) and were tested on their belief/recollection. After 1-week, participants were randomly assigned to four groups. One group received social feedback that one scene was not experienced. A second group received objective false evidence that one of the scenes was not shown. A third group received both social feedback and objective false evidence and the control group did not receive any manipulation. Belief in occurrence dropped considerably in the social feedback group and in the combined group. Also, nonbelieved memories were most likely to occur in participants receiving both social feedback and objective false evidence. We show that social feedback and objective false evidence undermine belief in occurrence, but that they leave belief in accuracy and recollection unaffected.

Maltreated (n=26) and non-maltreated (n=31) 7- to 12-year-old children were tested on the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) false memory task using emotional and neutral word lists. True recall was significantly better for non-maltreated than maltreated children regardless of list valence. The proportion of false recall for neutral lists was comparable regardless of maltreatment status. However, maltreated children showed a significantly higher false recall rate for the emotional lists than non-maltreated children. Together, these results provide new evidence that maltreated children could be more prone to false memory illusions for negatively valenced information than their non-maltreated counterparts.

In a recent paper, Fernandez (2015) argues that memory distortion can have beneficial outcomes. Although we agree with this, we find his reasoning and examples flawed to such degree that they will lead to misunderstandings rather than clarification in the field of memory (distortion). In his paper, Fernandez uses the terms belief and memory incorrectly, creating a conceptual blur. Also, Fernandez tries to make the case that under certain circumstances, false memories of abuse are beneficial. We argue against this idea as the reasoning behind this claim is based on controversial assumptions such as repression. Although it is true that memory distortions can be beneficial, the examples sketched by Fernandez are not in line with recent documentation in this area. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In three experiments we investigated the role of automatic and controlled inhibitory retrieval processes in true and false memory development in children and adults. Experiment 1 incorporated a directed forgetting task to examine controlled retrieval inhibition. Experiments 2 and 3 utilized a part-set cue and retrieval practice task to examine automatic retrieval inhibition. In the first experiment, the forget cue had no effect on false recall for adults but reduced false recall for children. In Experiments 2 and 3, both tasks caused retrieval impairments for true and false recall, and this occurred for all age groups. Implicit inhibition, which occurs outside of our conscious control, appears early in childhood. However, because young children do not process false memories as automatically as adults, explicit inhibition can reduce false memory output.

Can false memories have a positive consequence on human cognition? In two experiments, we investigated whether false memories could prime insight problem-solving tasks. Children and adults were asked to solve compound remote associate task (CRAT) problems, half of which had been primed by the presentation of Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) lists whose critical lures were also the solutions to the problems. In Experiment 1, the results showed that regardless of age, when the critical lure was falsely recalled, CRAT problems were solved more often and significantly faster than problems that were not primed by a DRM list. When the critical lure was not falsely recalled, CRAT problem solution rates and times were no different from when there was no DRM priming. In Experiment 2, without an intervening recall test, children and adults still exhibited higher solution rates and faster solution times to CRAT problems that were primed than to those that were not primed. This latter result shows that priming occurred as a result of false memory generation at encoding and not at retrieval during the recall test. Together, these findings demonstrate that when false memories are generated at encoding, they can prime solutions to insight-based problems in both children and adults.

For some time now, questions have been asked about the impact of television and video materials on the cognitive and social development of preschoolers and older children. More recently, these same questions have been asked in relation to the extensive exposure to these media that infants and toddlers are currently experiencing. To answer these questions, we review current research that explicitly targets these concerns and provide new insights into the role these media play in early development.

Previous research has shown that survival-related processing of word lists enhances retention for that material. However, the claim that survival-related memories are more accurate has only been examined when true recall and recognition of neutral material has been measured. In the current experiments, we examined the adaptive memory superiority effect for different types of processing and material, measuring accuracy more directly by comparing true and false recollection rates. Survival-related information and processing was examined using word lists containing backward associates of neutral, negative, and survival-related critical lures and type of processing (pleasantness, moving, survival) was varied using an incidental memory paradigm. Across four experiments, results showed that survival-related words were more susceptible than negative and neutral words to the false memory illusion and that processing information in terms of its relevance to survival independently increased this susceptibility to the false memory illusion. Overall, although survival-related processing and survival-related information resulted in poorer, not more accurate, memory, such inaccuracies may have adaptive significance. These findings are discussed in the context of false memory research and recent theories concerning the importance of survival processing and the nature of adaptive memory.

The effects of associative strength and gist relations on rates of children’s and adults’ true and false memories were examined in three experiments. Children aged 5–11 and university-aged adults participated in a standard Deese/Roediger–McDermott false memory task using DRM and category lists in two experiments and in the third, children memorized lists that differed in associative strength and semantic cohesion. In the first two experiments, half of the participants were primed before list presentation with gist-relevant cues and the results showed that: (1) both true and false memories increased with age, (2) true recall was higher than false recall for all ages, (3) at all ages, false memory rates were determined by backward associative strength, and (4) false memories varied predictably with changes in associative strength but were unaffected by gist manipulations (category structure or gist priming). In the third experiment, both gist and associative strength were varied orthogonally and the results showed that regardless of age, children’s (5) true recall was affected by gist manipulations (semantic cohesion) and (6) false recall was affected by backward associative strength. These findings are discussed in the context of models of false memory illusions and continuities in memory development more generally.

The effects of within- versus between-languages (English–French) study and test on rates of bilingual children’s and adults’ true and false memories were examined. Children aged 6 through 12 and university-aged adults participated in a standard Deese–Roediger–McDermott false memory task using free recall and recognition. Recall results showed that: (1) both true and false memories increased with age, (2) true recall was higher in within- than between-languages conditions for all ages, and (3) there were fewer false memories in between-languages conditions than within-language conditions for the youngest children, no differences for the 8 and 12 years old, and by adulthood, there were more false memories in between-languages than within-language conditions. Recognition results showed that regardless of age, false recognition rates tended to be higher in between-languages than within-language conditions. These findings are discussed in the context of models of false memory development.

We outline the nature of dynamic systems, both linear and nonlinear, and we review dynamic systems principles that apply well to various aspects of human development, including the emergence of new forms, phases of stability and instability, continuous and discontinuous change, and differentiation among individual trajectories. We then document the growth and popularity of dynamic systems approaches for understanding a diverse array of developmental domains. Finally, we acknowledge the contribution and impact Esther Thelen has made in this area of developmental science, and dedicate this special issue to her memory.

A study was conducted to evaluate the (1) developmental course and (2) the temporal sequencing of visual (mirror, photo) and verbal (personal pronoun use) measures of self-recognition as well as the ability to locate a toy from its mirror image in relation to the child's own mirror image. A microgenetic approach was adopted to assess 10 toddlers biweekly between 15 and 23 months of age and for comparison, a cross-section of children tested once across the same age range. Longitudinal data indicated that visual self-recognition emerged gradually and showed wide variability in expression prior to becoming stable, a finding masked in the cross-sectional data where performance appeared to improve abruptly. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal data confirmed that mirror self-recognition was the earliest precursor of the indices of self-recognition to emerge followed by the use of personal pronouns and photo identification. Implications for the emergence and integration of the self are discussed.

Over the past three decades impressive progress has been made in documenting the development of encoding, storage, and retrieval processes in preverbal infants and children. This literature includes an extensive and diverse database as well as theoretical conjecture about the underlying processes that drive early memory development. A selective review of some of this literature is provided to illustrate the extent and scope of this research, what is currently known about how memory develops over time, and some of the questions that remain to be answered. Importantly, research on early memory development has provided insights into a number of longstanding issues that have been prominent in the memory literature more generally (e.g., the memory systems question, infantile amnesia). It has also yielded practical information relevant to memory functioning in real world settings (e.g., for forensic and clinical psychology). We conclude that the basic processes needed to encode, store, and retrieve information are present very early in life and that although significant developmental advances take place across early childhood, many of the processes that govern memory in preverbal children are common with those of verbal children and adults. These issues are discussed and future directions for research are suggested.

A longstanding issue in psychology has been, When does human memory begin? More particularly, when do we begin to remember personal experiences in a way that makes them accessible to recollection later in life? Current popular and scientific thinking would have us believe that memories are possible not only at the time of our birth, but also in utero. Indeed, some writers in the popular press (as well as some recent television programs) suggest that we can remember past lives and that such memories are affecting our current behaviors. The purpose of this special issue is to examine, in a scientific context, what the most recent empirical data have to say about the nature of early memory and its development. In this article, we provide the background to the questions that prompted this special issue and suggest that memory for personal events, although it may start quite early in life, does so much later than claimed in popular writings about early memory.

The authors review competing theories concerning the emergence and early development of autobiographical memory. It is argued that the differences between these accounts, although important, may be more apparent than real. The crux of these disagreements lies not in what processes are important, but rather, the role these different processes play in the emergence of autobiographical memory and the temporal primacy of these controlling variables. These differences are explored theoretically and then extant as well as new data are brought to bear on these issues. What emerges is a new, more inclusive, multifactorial framework that integrates the controlling variables from diverse perspectives providing a more complete account of the beginnings of autobiographical memory.

The argument advanced in this article is that false memories can arise because of processes that normally affect forgetting, namely, the decline of distinctiveness and the rise of retroactive interference. Specifically, when the distinctiveness of a trace relative to the background of other traces diminishes, the potential for interference among like traces increases. To the extent that memories lose their distinctive properties, including the source of the memory, such memories may become confused with events that are supposed to be recalled as actually having occurred. This idea is elaborated in the context of studies of the effects of distinctiveness on reducing retroactive interference in children's long-term retention. It is concluded that advances in understanding false memories and the role distinctiveness might play in reducing such misrememberings is contingent on the development of additional formal modeling approaches like the one presented in the lead paper by Brainerd and Reyna (1998, this issue).

Alexander von Eye is Professor of Psychology and Family and Child Ecology at Michigan State University. His research interests in cognitive development focus on methods for analysis of categorical data, longitudinal data, and modeling. He currently serves as Associate Editor of the Biometrical Journal and Revue Multiciencia . Clifford C. Clogg (1949–1995) was Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Professor of Statistics at Pennsylvania State University. His research interests focused on categorical data analysis, including association models and latent structure techniques. He served as Editor of Sociological Methodology (1987–1990) and Coordinating and Applications Editor of the Journal of the American Statistical Association (1989–1991). Von Eye and Clogg have also coedited Latent Variables Analysis . Mark L. Howe is Professor of Psychology at Memorial University of Newfoundland. His research has focused on early memory development and with models of lifespan memory development. He has edited a number of books; the most recent book, coedited with R. Pasnak, is Emerging Themes in Cognitive Development . F. Michael Rabinowitz is also Professor of Psychology at Memorial University. His research interests have ranged across a number of topics which include cognitive development, dynamics of free recall, implicit and explicit learning, and the construction of computer algorithms.

The trace integrity framework, including the associated mathematical model, is used to summarize a corpus of data on the development of children's and adults' long-term retention. The purpose of this review is to get some leverage on what role storage and retrieval processes play in the forgetting and subsequent recovery of memory traces. What this review shows is that (1) forgetting is dominated by storage, not retrieval, failures; (2) trace recovery is dominated by retrieval, not storage, operations; and (3) storage failure rates decline with age in childhood, whereas only modest developments occur in retrieval recovery operations. These findings are then applied to current issues concerning adult recall of childhood memories.

In the current experiment, we evaluated the relationship between reasoning and remembering across the lifespan (10-, 13-, 15-, 23-, and 67-year-olds) using color and number class-inclusion tasks. Subjects made judgments when memory load or information load was either high or low. Reading latency, choice latency, and choice accuracy data were collected and analyzed using formal models that partitioned memory and reasoning as well as type of reasoning strategy. The results showed that: (1) study skills, as indexed by reading latency, were sophisticated across the lifespan; (2) the difference between color and number choice latencies increased with age; (3) reasonably consistent effects were obtained as a function of increasing memory load, with the quality of both reasoning and remembering being adversely affected; (4) different effects were obtained at each age as a function of increasing information load; and (5) the major developmental trend across the lifespan was a tradeoff between class-inclusion and subclass-subclass forms of reasoning. A number of extant theoretical approaches were discussed, none of which were able to account for variations in class-inclusion performance across the lifespan. What was clear, however, was that memory-reasoning dependencies must be incorporated into any comprehensive theory of cognitive development across the lifespan.

We provide an introduction to the essential constructs involved in dynamic modeling. These constructs are then related to issues in psychological development. In particular, we discuss stages, states, sequences, and pure transition models as well as cross-sectional and longitudinal experimental designs. We conclude that transition is a key invariance in development and that single subject, longitudinal designs are essential in studying the dynamics of ontogeny.

An overview of the models and data relevant to children′s transitive reasoning is provided. We propose a new conceptual framework, one which is embedded in a dynamic model that accounts for children′s failures to reason transitively. It is assumed that rather than reasoning in a transitive manner, children often encode both relational and absolute stimulus information and use stimulus generalization as a transfer mechanism. The model is applied to new and extant data. The model provides an adequate and parsimonious account of children′s failures on these tasks. We conclude that progress in understanding children′s reasoning is dependent on operationalizing constructs in formal models so that assumptions can be evaluated and rejected.

In this article, we focus on two issues, namely, the nature and onset of very early personal memories, especially for traumatic events, and the role of stress in long-term retention. We begin by outlining a theory of early autobiographical memory, one whose unfolding is coincident with emergence of the cognitive self. It is argued that it is not until this self emerges that personal memories will remain viable over extended periods of time. We illustrate this with 25 cases of young children′s long-term retention of early traumatic events involving emergency room treatment. On the basis of both qualitative (case profiles) and quantitative (analysis of covariance) analyses, we conclude that (a) very young children (under the age of 2 years) retain limited memories for events which they commonly express behaviorally, (b) coherent autobiographical memories are not constructed until the child develops a cognitive sense of self (on average, at 24 months of age), (c) autobiographical memories for traumatic events are essentially no different from those for nontraumatic events, (d) stress is only related to long-term retention inasmuch as it is one variable that serves to make an event unique, and (e) like nontraumatic events, traumatic memories lose peripheral details during the retention interval and retain the central components of the event. These results are discussed both in terms of their implications for theories of early autobiographical memory as well as the ways in which we might differentiate implanted (or false) memories and authentic memories for traumatic events.

In this article, I discuss the importance of inter- and intraindividual differences in understanding development in general and cognitive development in particular. Rather than treating such differences as noise that needs to be exorcised from the data, it is argued that such variability provides invaluable information about development. In fact, between and within individual instabilities represent an important cache of information about development, one that needs to be fully exploited. In order to do this, a new dynamic modeling framework is discussed, one in which individual variability is key to the analysis and understanding of development.

In this article, we call for a formal approach to modeling the development of reasoning. We discuss the need to operationalize the nature of encoding and processing. These problems are reviewed in the context of fuzzy-trace theory with particular emphasis on class-inclusion reasoning experiments. We argue that salience manipulations (perceptual or linguistic) give the illusion of inclusion by promoting subclass-subclass comparisons. We present an alternate, mathematical model of class-inclusion reasoning in which memory and reasoning parameters are estimated and integrated in a skills analysis of performance. We conclude that without similar formal modeling efforts, the nature of children's reasoning will remain elusive.

Cognitive triage is a surprising nonmonotonic relationship that exists between the order in which children read words out of long-term memory and the memory strengths of those same words. Two forgetting experiments with 7- and 12-year-old children are reported in which fuzzy-trace theory's explanation of this effect was pitted against an effortful processing explanation. The two explanations make different predictions about the relative rates of forgetting for words that are recalled at the primacy and recency positions of output queues. The data consistently favored fuzzy-trace theory's predictions. We discuss the implications of our results for two assumptions that are commonly made in theories of memory development—namely, that recall accuracy is a monotonic-increasing function of memory strength and that recall order is a monotonic-decreasing function of memory strength.

A variety of resource and nonresource constructs relevant to cognitive development are described. An introduction to, and evaluation of, four resource-based neo-Piagetian models follows. Alternative models are then described. We conclude that the literature is rich in data and constructs, but that the link between them is frustratingly vague. Formal modeling, either computer- or mathematically based, seems to be the only way to establish this link.

An eleven-parameter model for two-stage learning is developed. The model's principal advantage over extant two-stage models is that its parameter space is completely identifiable, thereby eliminating the tedious procedure of locating acceptable identifying restrictions. Identifiability is achieved by defining the model over a slightly modified outcome space. Following the identifiability proof, the necessary statistical machinery for parameter estimation, goodness-of-fit analyses, and hypothesis testing is presented. These latter developments are illustrated with data from an adult cued recall experiment and a free recall experiment with elementary school children.

Three experiments were conducted to investigate the general issue of the relationship between memory and reasoning and the specific issue of subskills used in answering class-inclusion questions. Semantic skills of first-grade children were investigated in the Pilot Experiment. In Experiment 1, an attempt was made to determine if fourth graders, seventh graders, and college students mimicked the first graders tendency to appropriately encode the superordinate class, but answer class-inclusion questions as though only subclass comparisons were required. A mathematical model and a computer-based methodology were developed for this purpose. Unlike previous research, in Experiment 1 fourth and seventh graders showed no understanding of class-inclusion logic. Because of the additional memory demands imposed by the questions used in Experiment 1, a third experiment was conducted to evaluate if memory load determined the quality of class-inclusion reasoning. The results obtained across the three experiments were interpreted as reflecting the need for a new conceptualization of the class-inclusion task. Performance seems to be dependent on subjects' abilities to integrate relevant subskills, rather than on deficient reasoning or missing subskills, consistent with a resource-limited, willed-attention, working-memory model.

We report two free recall experiments and a cued recall experiment in which a new two-stage model was used to obtain numerical measurements of age changes in various aspects of storage and retrieval. The subjects in all three experiments were 7-year-olds (second graders) and 11-year-olds (sixth graders). The major findings in the free recall experiment were that getting a trace into storage posed less of a problem for elementary schoolers than learning how to get it out on test trials, that retrieval development is more rapid during the elementary school years than storage development, and that the superiority of older children's storage and retrieval abilities tends to become more pronounced as learning progresses. A similar pattern of results was obtained under different conditions in the cued recall experiment.

It is well known that much of everyday cognition relies on both the ability to acquire information and the ability to retain it over extended time intervals. Theories of memory development must, therefore, include assumptions about the processes that govern long-term retention of information as well as processes that regulate its acquisition. Unfortunately, while much is known about the development of acquisition processes, considerably less is known about the ontogeny of long-term retention. In this article, we discuss reasons for this discrepancy, and we review extant research on children's amnesia and hypermnesia. As the review unfolds, a number of methodological and measurement problems are examined, and a new theoretical framework is presented that is implemented in a mathematical model. We show how application of this framework eliminates the indicated problems.

Although Age × Treatment interactions have been widely viewed as key results in theories of memory development, most examples of such results (e.g., Age × Treatment interactions in the effects of item concreteness, item elaboration, and organizational context) have been identified in list-learning experiments where children of different ages receive a small, fixed number of study-test cycles on the target list. A stages-of-learning analysis reveals that such designs confound a treatment's potential interactions with age and its potential interactions with stage of learning. The analysis also reveals specific situations in which such designs will produce converging, diverging, and crossover Age × Treatment interactions even though the treatment does not interact with age in any way. A series of experiments is reported in which a mathematical model that incorporates stages-of-learning distinctions is applied to the well-known interaction between age and item concreteness (pictures versus words) in cued recall. Although a diverging Age × Treatment interaction has been observed in previous research, it was found that there are at least four different interactions between the picture-word manipulation and age; (a) a diverging interaction at storage that operates throughout elementary school; (b) a diverging interaction localized within retrieval learning and operating during the first half of the elementary school; (c) a converging interaction localized within retrieval learning and operating during the second half of elementary school; and (d) a diverging interaction localized within retrieval performance and operating throughout elementary school.

An experiment is reported in which the effects of taxonomic organization on 7-year-old and 11-year-old children's free and cued recall of two- and four-category lists were examined. The data were analyzed using a stages-of-learning model that simultaneously delivers estimates of the impact of these manipulations on storage and retrieval components of recall. The results indicated that for the Grade 2 children providing a category label at the time of recall primarily enhanced storage whereas increasing the number of categories primarily enhanced retrieval. For Grade 6 children, on the other hand, the use of category labels to cue recall primarily enhanced retrieval, whereas increasing the number of categories affected both storage and retrieval in free recall, but only retrieval in cued recall. In addition, while older children were superior to younger children at both storing and retrieving information, age differences at retrieval were generally larger than those at storage.

In this commentary, we argue that dual-task performance is currently not interpretable. The argument is based on the assumption that a number of plausible and compatible hypotheses have been offered to account for dual-task interference. Our present state of theoretical development does not permit us to discriminate among the alternative hypotheses. We demonstrate this by constructing a simple linear model which includes only limited resources and response competition. In order to fit this model, a minimum of eight groups must be run and single- and dual-tasks must be scaled on the same dimension.

Although it is generally acknowledged that decrements in long-term memory play an important role in the decline of everyday cognitive functioning in adulthood, problems have arisen in localizing the source of these memory deficits. In this article we address three of the methodological and measurement issues that have led to difficulties in interpreting research on adulthood developmental differences in acquisition and long-term retention. Specifically, these issues are stages-of-learning confounds, failures to separate storage and retrieval processes, and failures to separate forgetting from other factors that influence long-term retention tests. A general framework is presented in which each of these problems is dealt with. This model is subsequently applied to an experiment that examined the acquisition and long-term retention of pictures and words in associative memory in both young and old adults. The major findings were that (a) the picture-word manipulation had asymmetrical effects on acquisition and retention, (b) these asymmetries were different for the young and old adults, and (c) the locus (storage/retrieval) of age differences was different at acquisition than at retention. These results strongly suggest that the rules governing acquisition and forgetting are different, not only within age groups, but also across developmental levels in adulthood. More importantly, because the locus of developmental differences was different for acquisition and forgetting, it may be that different mechanisms underly the processing deficits experienced by the elderly when acquiring information than when trying to retain that information over extended periods of time.