3-074 - To Remember or Not Remember? Consolidation and Forgetting as Mechanisms of Cognitive Development

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Consolidation and forgetting have long been recognized as critical mechanisms in memory (Ebbinghaus, 1885). However, only recently has research examined whether these mechanisms affect children's learning in other domains, such as the development of higher-order cognition. This symposium presents new research examining whether consolidation and/or forgetting affect learning outcomes across several cognitive tasks, such as contingency learning, language, and categorization.

The first two talks will provide evidence that consolidating information promotes children's learning. Paper 1 will demonstrate that the consolidation occurring during wake and sleep both contribute to children's word learning. Paper 2 will show that consolidation can reduce retroactive interference, supporting children's contingency learning. The second two talks will provide evidence that forgetting information promotes children's learning. Paper 3 will demonstrate developmental differences in the relations between recognition memory and category learning. In particular, having poor memory for some category features can facilitate categorization. Paper 4 will show that children who forget information between learning events at faster rates have better long-term memory for word-object associations. Taken together, this research supports the conclusion that consolidation and forgetting are domain-general mechanisms that promote the development of higher-order cognition. At the end of the symposium, the chair will lead a discussion on generating a theoretical model of how these mechanisms work together to facilitate children’s learning. Indeed, consolidation and forgetting are processes that are seemingly at odds with each other. How can both remembering and not remembering information promote cognitive development?

Sub Unit

• Attention, Learning, Memory

Chair

• Haley A Vlach, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Individual Presentations

• Consolidation: Recovery Periods of Sleep and Wake Lead to Stabilization of Learning in the Developing Brain - Presenting Author: Katharine Newman-Smith, University of Arizona; Michelle Sandoval, University of Arizona; Rebecca Gomez, University of Arizona

• When Time Delays Improve Memory: Consolidation and Children’s Susceptibility to Retroactive Interference - Presenting Author: Kevin Darby, Ohio State University; Vladimir Sloutsky, Ohio State University

• Developmental Differences in Category Representation: Evidence from Recognition Memory - Presenting Author: Wei (Sophia) Deng, Ohio State University; Vladimir Sloutsky, Ohio State University

• Children That Forget Faster Remember More: Individual and Developmental Differences in Interleaved Learning - Presenting Author: Carla Kraft, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Haley A Vlach, University of Wisconsin, Madison