Developmental Differences in Temporal Memory Organization

• In Event: 3-099 - Children’s Representation of Time in Memory and Future-Oriented Thought

Integrative Statement

Memory research has shown that adults remember events with similar contextual features as having occurred closer in time to one another relative to events with dissimilar contextual features (Ezzyat & Davachi, 2014). Thus, context appears to guide temporal memory organization in adults, promoting within-event integration (when similar) or event segmentation (when dissimilar). Memory for contextual information improves across childhood and into adolescence (Ghetti, 2017). However, the present study addresses the novel question of how context influences temporal memory organization during development.

Younger children (5-6 years), older children (7-9 years), adolescents (10-12 years), and adults (N=118) were administered a developmental version of a paradigm developed by Ezzyat and Davachi (2014) (Figure 1a). In an initial encoding phase, participants studied picture pairs made up of a scene and a trial-unique face or object. Contextual overlap was manipulated by organizing trials into same- and different-context quartets. In same-context quartets, scene stimuli repeated across four consecutive trials. In different-context quartets, scene stimuli changed between the second and third trial. Afterwards, participants rated the temporal distance between the first and fourth face/object within each quartet as ‘very close’, ‘close’, ‘far’, or ‘very far’. Importantly, the actual temporal distance between these items was fixed, such that trials differed only on whether or not the two items had been paired with the same scene. This design feature allowed us to assess the proportion of participants’ close/far responses as an index of within-event integration (more close responses within the same-context condition) and event segmentation (more far responses within the different-context condition). A final source memory test measured participants’ memory for individual item-context pairings.

We predicted an increasing influence of context on temporal distance judgments with age. To examine this prediction, temporal distance ratings were organized into very close/close (coded as 0) and far/very far (coded as 1) bins. The proportion of close/far responses was assessed by computing the mean of these responses. This value was then entered into an age x context mixed ANOVA. Results revealed an age x context interaction, F(3,114)=13.34, p<.001 (Figure 1b). We found no differences between the proportion of close and far responses in either context condition for younger children (ps>.215). In contrast, older children were more likely to judge items within the same context as close (p<.001), but equally likely to judge different-context items as close and far (p=.295). Adolescents’ (ps<.001) and adults’ (ps<.001) responses differed across both context conditions. This pattern of results held when controlling for the effect of age on source memory, F(3,114)=37.95, p<.001 (Figure 1c).

As predicted, children’s temporal distance ratings revealed an increasing influence of context with age. Further, sensitivity to context emerged earliest within the same-context condition, suggesting that within-episode integration develops earlier than context-based event segmentation. Together, these findings indicate that contextual influences on temporal memory representation develop into adolescence, with important consequences for memory-based decision making.

Authors

• Christine Coughlin, The University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author

• Athula Pudhiyidath, The University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hannah Roome, University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nicole Varga, University of Texas, Austin
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kim Nguyen, The University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alison R Preston, The University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author