Poster #11 - Influence of Time Knowledge and Retrieval Strategies on Temporal Memory in Middle and Late Childhood

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Attention, Learning, Memory

Integrative Statement

Time is a critical feature of episodic memory—memory for events from a specific time and place (Tulving, 1972). Previous research indicates that temporal memory is slower to develop than other episodic memory features (e.g., ‘what’ and ‘where’; Lee et al., 2016), and improvements are observed across middle and late childhood (Friedman & Lyon, 2005; Pathman & Ghetti, 2014; Reese et al., 2011). The factors that drive these improvements are not yet clear. Here we examine changes in strategy use and semantic knowledge about time. Friedman (1993, 2014) suggests that to make temporal judgments, children and adults can use distance or reconstruction strategies. Distance strategies involve judging when an event occurred based on its vividness, but reconstruction strategies include retrieving event details and combining them with time knowledge (e.g., days of week, months of year). From early to late childhood, children’s ability to engage in these strategies improves (Friedman, 1991; Friedman & Lyon, 2005; Pathman, Larkina, Burch, & Bauer, 2013). In other work, it has been found that temporal memory for both lab-based and autobiographical events is related to performance on a Conventional Time Knowledge (CTK) task, which requires participants to flexibly order the months of the year (Friedman, Reese, & Dai, 2011; Pathman & Ghetti, 2014).
We examined temporal memory in middle and late childhood (7-9-year-olds, n=29 and 10-12-year-olds, n=29) and adulthood (n=31) with a recognition memory task. During encoding, participants studied two lists of objects separated by a short break. After a delay, participants saw the objects from the previous lists combined with novel objects and identified each object as being from List 1, List 2, or New. At the end of the recognition test, they answered questions about strategies used during retrieval. Additionally, participants completed the CTK task and the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI; Wechsler, 1999).
In the recognition task, adults had more source hits (i.e., List 1 items identified as List 1; List 2 items identified as List 2) than 7- to 9-year-olds and 10- to 12-year-olds (see Figure 1). Thus, there is additional support for improvements of temporal memory beyond late childhood. A multiple regression analysis indicated that both age, β=.46, t(88)=4.64, p < .001, and CTK, β=.24, t(88)=2.33, p=.02, were unique predictors of proportion of source hits; WASI was not predictive, β=.10, p=.33. This replicates and extends Pathman and Ghetti (2014) to a different type of temporal memory task. Concerning retrieval strategy, a chi-square test (χ2=(8, N=89)=0.43, p < .001) indicated that the purported use of more sophisticated strategies (context or temporal based) increases with age (see Table 1). Additionally, a mixed ANOVA showed that across age groups, participants who stated they used context retrieval or temporal-based strategies correctly recognized more old items than those who reported other strategies or no strategies, F(1, 88)=4.33, p=.04.
The current study demonstrates that memory for temporal context improves beyond late childhood. Additionally, results support that both time knowledge and strategy could be related to the development of temporal memory, which few studies have shown thus far.

Authors

• Kathleen M Bettencourt, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
  Presenting Author

• Thanujeni Pathman, York University
  Non-Presenting Author