Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Age-related changes in encoding, retention and retrieval using studies of operant conditioning
- Early Life Skills:
- sucking & turning head = newborn
- gross motor skills [kicking legs] = 3-6 months
- independent motor skills [reaching] = 6-12 months
- fine motor control [manipulate objects = toddler
- Test Reactions to Memories:
- looking at pictures
- sucking on dummy
- kicking legs
- manipulating objects
- What develops as memory improves?
- Encoding: older infants learn faster i.e. less demonstration & time needed
- Retention: older remember for longer
- Retrieval: older infants better able to retrieve memories in different situations - generalisation
- younger babies = cannot have different contexts e.g. if mobile has different animals, they have no idea what it is
- older babies/people = if in the same situation remember better than if not in the same e.g. do revision in exam conditions
- Visual Paired Comparison Task:
- familiarisation (old pictures) vs habituation (getting used to it)
- test = a familiar stimulus is paired with a novel stimulus
- 2 pics on screen = 1. old from habituation task 2. new
- if remember old pic should look at new more
- High Amplitude Sucking Task:
- operant conditioning
- learn the contingency between sucking behaviour and reinforcement [mothers voice]
- sounds similar to the womb are most reinforcing
- DeCasper & Spence, 1986 [Dr Seuss readings]
- Mobile Conjugate Reinforcement:
- operant conditioning
- learn contingency between kicking behaviour and reinforcement [movement in mobile]
- test: 1. need to work out a baseline, 2. give practice time, 3. measure - without anything attached to the string, thus no reinforcement = measure if remember
- cannot remind before hand otherwise can be retrieval error = storage is mature but recall isn't as mature
- seem to forget the task rapidly: 2 months = 24hrs, 3 months = 1 week, 6 months = 2 weeks
- Deferred Imitation: The Puppet Task:
- 3 actions = remove mitten, shake it, replace the mitten
- no practice or verbal cues
- 2 groups: control = don't get a demonstration, experimental = get a demonstraion
- Improvements in encoding:
- younger infants need longer time to encode things
- Morgan and Hayne (2006) compared memories of a 1 yr old and a 4 yr old
- test: visual pictures, gave an encoding time of 5, 10 or 30 secs encoding, tested memory 24hrs later and 1 week later
- 4yr olds gave more preference to older pics even if only saw for 5 secs
- longer encoding time = better retreival
- memory and language development:
- if cannot speak how r memories encoded:
- Encoding Specificity Hypothesis: pre-verbal memories might not be translated into a verbal memory = Magic Shrinking Machine
- Magic Shrinking Machine: Simcock & Hayne 2002
- 27, 33 & 39 months old children
- demonstrated the actions of the machine, then tested language and knowledge at T1
- tested 6 months & 12 months later: free recall [tell me everything you remember], direct questions [what are the names of the toys], photography recognition [1 target 3 distractors], behavioural [re-enactment], then language tested
- 6 months = younger infants recognition of actions is good, 12 months = older infants re-enact very well
- language assessment: 23 target words: children didn't use any new words, only used words that were encoded, thus cannot describe old with new words
- behavioural memories = really good, verbal = memory not as good