Poster #1 - Computational modeling reveals that spatial memory development arises through separable recall and precision processes

• In Event: Poster Session 12

Abstract

As you learn the layout of a new city, sometimes you might successfully recall a store’s location, but at other times you may be less certain and have to approximate its location. Children, in particular, may rely on less certain “guesses” when navigating in new spatial environments. Here, we take a computational approach to quantify developmental differences in the recall and precision of spatial memories in a virtual object location task. We predicted that adults would be more likely to recall the location of objects in a virtual arena than children, who may guess approximate locations. Furthermore, we predicted that when spatial memories are recalled, the precisions of recall would increase with age. Such increased memory precision may not only allow you to remember where a store is located, but also the location of its nearest entrance to you.
Children (6-12 years) and adults (18-33 years) learned the locations of four objects within a virtual arena; object locations were linked with either an intra-maze landmark or extra-maze cue (i.e., distal mountains). During test trials, participants were cued with an object and had to navigate to its remembered location. To model age-related improvement in spatial memory, we developed a mixture model of object location recall (Figure 1a-c). This mixture model accounts for the possibility that participants sometimes fail to recall an object’s location and therefore must guess its approximate location. Bayesian multi-level modeling was used to estimate how recall probability and recall precision vary with age (Figure 1d). Plotting the distribution of responses for the remembered location (Figure 1e-f) illustrates the developmental progression from coarse spatial memory and frequent guessing in younger children to fine spatial memory and improved recall in adults.
Model estimates of recall probability and precision for the remembered object locations increased with age (Figure 2), suggesting that improvements in spatial memory accuracy with age were due to both improved memory precision and decreased guessing. Moreover, we found that while younger children have poor accuracy when remembering objects whose locations are linked to distal (mountain) cues, when they do recall those locations, their memories are precise. Our model fits further estimate the age at which adult-like spatial memory recall and precision are evident. Adult-like successful recall for objects located nearest the intra-maze cue is estimated to occur by 13 years, while adult-like recall and precision for locations farther from the intra-maze landmark or linked to distal cues are estimated to occur later in adolescence (i.e., 14-16 years).
In summary, our modeling approach allowed us to disentangle the effects of recall probability and recall precision on spatial memory. Both spatial memory recall and precision show a protracted development into mid-adolescence. Recall probability depends on both age and location complexity, with younger children struggling to recall spatial memories of object locations based integrating information across multiple distal cues.

Authors

• Hannah Elizabeth Roome, University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author

• Katherine R. Sherrill, University of Texas at Austin

• Neal W Morton, University of Texas at Austin

• Kim Nguyen, Temple University

• Ata B Karagoz, Washington, University in St. Louis

• Christine A Coughlin, University of Texas at Austin

• Alison Preston, University of Texas at Austin