Poster #4 - Component Processes Involved in the Self-Derivation of New Knowledge in Four-Year-Olds

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Attention, Learning, Memory

Integrative Statement

Semantic memory is our repository of knowledge about the world. It expands through direct experiences, such as reading a textbook or attending a lecture, and through productive processes that allow knowledge extension beyond what is directly learned. This research focuses on the productive process of self-derivation of new information through integration of separate, yet related episodes of new learning. This process allows individuals to derive the novel fact that pods talk by clicking and squeaking, having learned during Episode 1 that dolphins talk by clicking and squeaking, and in Episode 2 that dolphins live in groups called pods. Past research has found that relative to 6- and 8-year-olds, who self-derive on 67% and 75% of trials, 4-year-olds self-derive only on 13% of the trials (Bauer & Larkina, 2017; Bauer & San Souci, 2010). Based on the ERISS model (Bauer & Varga, 2017), which describes five temporally-staged processes involved in self-derivation, we hypothesize that 4-year-olds struggle to Reactivate Episode 1 upon encoding Episode 2, and subsequently fail to form an Integrated representation. Accordingly, in the present research we sought to facilitate Reactivation by having 4-year-olds recall the episodes immediately prior to the self-derivation test (Experiment 1) and facilitate Integration by “pre-integrating” the separate episodes (Experiment 2).

In Experiment 1, 24 4-year-olds (14 female; mean age = 4.4 years) participated and were randomly assigned to either Recall or No-Recall condition. All children were read 3 pairs of story passages; each story contained a novel fact (stem fact). The stem facts within a pair could be integrated to generate a novel fact (integration fact). Each story pair was read twice: Story1-Story2, Story1-Story2. Before the self-derivation test, children in the Recall condition were asked to recall the stem facts. Children in the No-Recall condition were asked to recall non-stem facts (see Figure 1). Contrary to our hypothesis, children’s self-derivation performance did not differ based on the Reactivation manipulation (see Figure 2). Yet performance was more than twice as high as observed in prior research with 4-year-olds (31% compared to 13%).

In Experiment 2, we are testing the hypothesis that 4-year-olds facilitated performance was due to the “pre-integrated” presentation of the story pairs. Children are randomly assigned to an Integrated or Non-Integrated condition. In the Integrated condition (derived from Experiment 1), the episodes are presented back-to-back (Story1-Story2) and repeated. In the Non-Integrated condition, each story is presented twice but they are not presented in an integrated pair (Story1-Story1, Story2-Story2). Testing is ongoing. We expect that in the Non-Integrated condition performance will be lower as observed in prior research.

Together, the experiments provide tests of the roles of Reactivation and Integration in self-derivation of new knowledge in 4-year-old children. The findings further our understanding of this important developmental process and begin to provide suggestions of when interventions to facilitate performance may be most profitable.

Authors

• Ana Maria Hoffmann, Emory Universtiy
  Presenting Author

• Patricia Bauer, Emory University
  Non-Presenting Author