View in EDS HTML Full Text PDF Full Text

Distinct Environmental Cues Trigger Spontaneous Recall of Past Events in 3- and 4-Year-Old Children Even after Long Delays

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Title: Distinct Environmental Cues Trigger Spontaneous Recall of Past Events in 3- and 4-Year-Old Children Even after Long Delays
Language: English
Authors: Jensen, Toril S., Berntsen, Dorthe, Kingo, Osman S., Krøjgaard, Peter (ORCID 0000-0002-4976-0866)
Source: Child Development. Jul-Aug 2022 93(4):941-955.
Availability: Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 15
Publication Date: 2022
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Descriptors: Environmental Influences, Cues, Recall (Psychology), Early Experience, Long Term Memory, Preschool Children, Age Differences
DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13735
ISSN: 0009-3920
Abstract: Verbally reported long-term memory for past events typically improves with age. However, such findings are based exclusively on studies, where children are directly asked to recall. The present study showed that when 3- (n = 113, 59 girls) and 4-year-olds (n = 113, 62 girls), predominantly White, were brought back to a distinct laboratory-setting after either 1-, 4.5-, or 13-weeks, children--regardless of age and delay--spontaneously recalled the distinct event experienced at their first visit (all Cohen's ds > 1.00). Meanwhile, the oldest children outperformed the youngest when being asked directly to retrieve the event (n[subscript p][superscript 2]>0.088). These findings suggest that spontaneous retrieval facilitated by distinct environmental cues provides a short-cut to young children's event memories.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2022
Accession Number: EJ1341233
Database: ERIC
Full text is not displayed to guests.
FullText Links:
  – Type: pdflink
    Url: https://content.ebscohost.com/cds/retrieve?content=AQICAHj0k_4E0hTGH8RJwT4gCJyBsGNe_WN95AvKlDbXJGqwxwFAsMtzej-YXVPr7iMycsgJAAAA4zCB4AYJKoZIhvcNAQcGoIHSMIHPAgEAMIHJBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwHgYJYIZIAWUDBAEuMBEEDDMC5cZ0rPGxVGB3IwIBEICBm8k4OObObnhhM920c3gOUlZgqRBVLAYZY1EKm5wWJwdhhkKXyd6GLm-DkP9WptQlx44Q2F_x1J-nljV2R9UD2l5HpooX2gf2HeBwl8H6WZSpxauP0MVM36PIoRa10g3eknIPpNqvgirXjBlw5BzWdqi7bUqd8F7bVd1zvM0SuMRySBUXl4PInOiLxwYNscLb-Y2pZQ0cvoJnCVrd
Text:
  Availability: 1
  Value: <anid>AN0157891572;cdv01jul.22;2022Jul12.05:46;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0157891572-1">Distinct environmental cues trigger spontaneous recall of past events in 3‐ and 4‐year‐old children even after long delays </title> <p>Verbally reported long‐term memory for past events typically improves with age. However, such findings are based exclusively on studies, where children are directly asked to recall. The present study showed that when 3‐ (n = 113, 59 girls) and 4‐year‐olds (n = 113, 62 girls), predominantly White, were brought back to a distinct laboratory‐setting after either 1‐, 4.5‐, or 13‐weeks, children—regardless of age and delay—spontaneously recalled the distinct event experienced at their first visit (all Cohen's ds > 1.00). Meanwhile, the oldest children outperformed the youngest when being asked directly to retrieve the event (ηp2>.088). These findings suggest that spontaneous retrieval facilitated by distinct environmental cues provides a short‐cut to young children's event memories.</p> <p>Robust findings in the developmental literature show that memory for past events improves with age (e.g., Bauer, 2007), and that young children typically find it difficult to retrieve memories of past events when asked directly (Dahl et al., 2015; Simcock & Hayne, 2002). Besides general age‐related cognitive development (e.g., Piaget & Inhelder, 1969), at least two other factors are of note when explaining these results. First, verbal cues alone are often too abstract for the youngest children to be effective (Bauer et al., 1998; Pipe et al., 1993). Second, deliberate and strategic retrieval (prompted when directly asked to remember something) involves the use of prefrontal cortex, which matures relatively late in the ontogenesis (e.g. Bauer, 2004; Johnson, 2005). Thus, for young children, the process involved when responding to questions asked about past events (i.e., strategic retrieval) is by itself cognitively demanding, especially when the questions are asked out of context with no distinct, environmental cues present.</p> <p>The importance of providing cues for children's memories for past events is well‐founded in the developmental literature (Kobasigawa, 1974). Among children, environmental cues seem to be especially important, and the type of cues examined by developmental researchers ranges from reinstating the props from the event (e.g. Bauer et al., 1998; Dahl et al., 2015) or the location of the to‐be‐remembered event (e.g., La Rooy et al., 2007), to nonverbal cues such as photographs (e.g., Simcock & Hayne, 2002) at times combined with verbal reminders (e.g. Bauer et al., 2000; Hayne et al., 2015).</p> <p>Not all cues are equally effective. Props have been found to be more efficient than pictures (Bauer at al., 2004), and following the adult literature, the <emph>distinctiveness</emph> of the cues present at recall may be more important than the number of cues present (Berntsen et al., 2013; Nairne, 2002; Rubin, 1995). Similarly, the uniqueness of the to‐be‐remembered event (e.g., a trip to Disneyland) has been argued to facilitate recall in young children (Bauer et al., 2004; Hamond & Fivush, 1991).</p> <p>However, strategic retrieval—either supported by cues or being completely free—is not the only path to memories of past events. At times, memories of past events come to us uninvited, almost "out of the blue." In research conducted with adults, such memories are coined "involuntary memories" and defined as memories of past events "that come to mind with no preceding conscious attempt at retrieval" (Berntsen, 2009, p. 2). According to Berntsen (2009, 2010), involuntary memories of past events operate on the same episodic memory system as voluntarily retrieved memories, but differs from voluntary memories with respect to the mechanisms of retrieval. Whereas voluntary retrieval requires executive control, involuntary retrieval is mainly driven by simple associations—typically triggered by distinct environmental cues—and hence is less dependent on prefrontal structures as documented in brain‐imaging studies (e.g., Hall et al., 2008, 2014). Furthermore, involuntary memories are assumed to be an evolutionary and developmental forerunner to the more advanced and goal‐directed voluntary recall, and may develop earlier in the ontogenesis (Berntsen, 2009, 2021).</p> <p>Involuntary memories in adults have been examined by means of both diary and experimental methods. In diary studies, adult participants have been carefully informed about the two contrasting retrieval modes (i.e., strategic and involuntary retrieval, Berntsen, 2009). In experimental studies, adults have been instructed to report (involuntary) autobiographical memories, in case they should come to mind while being engaged in a parallel task (e.g., Schlagman & Kvavilashvili, 2008). Other experimental studies have used different reporting strategies to reduce demands for meta‐cognitive decisions, for example by asking participants to report any task‐unrelated thoughts (e.g., Barzykowski & Staugaard, 2018) or images (Berntsen et al., 2013; Staugaard & Berntsen, 2014), which afterwards were coded into more fine‐grained categories of mental contents of relevance for the study. In some brain imaging studies, participants in the involuntary memory condition were not even requested to report any mental content during scanning (Hall et al., 2014, 2018). In short, in research with adults, different reporting strategies have been used that involve quite different levels of meta‐cognitive awareness.</p> <p>Because young children may not be able to conceptualize, verbalize, and distinguish involuntary memories from other mental phenomena, as it requires a high level of meta‐cognitive abilities, we have introduced an operationalization of spontaneous recall based exclusively on verbal behavior, and without involving meta‐cognitive decisions. Spontaneous memories in children therefore have been operationalized as being verbally produced, environmentally cued, and socially unprompted, implying that the memories are not a result of questions (directly or indirectly) addressed to the child (Krøjgaard et al., 2014, 2017).</p> <p>Until recently, the scarce evidence concerning children's verbal spontaneous recollections has come exclusively from naturalistic studies conducted outside the laboratory (e.g., diary studies, MacDonald & Hayne, 1996; Nelson & Ross, 1980; Reese, 1999). For instance, Reese (1999) asked mothers of their 25‐ to 32‐month‐olds to report the children's spontaneous talk about past events. The results revealed that young children did indeed have spontaneous recollections, and that these typically were triggered by external cues (e.g., objects).</p> <p>While diary studies excel having high ecological validity (Todd & Perlmutter, 1980), they have their own problems with regard to generalizability. Therefore, examining spontaneous recollections in controlled settings would be a potentially important addition. In a recent series of studies, using a novel experimental design, researchers succeeded inducing spontaneous recollections in a controlled laboratory‐setting. Almost 3‐ and 4‐year‐olds spontaneously recalled events experienced 1 week earlier, when exposed to distinct environmental cues (Hjuler et al., 2021; Krøjgaard et al., 2017; Sonne et al., 2019, 2021). At the first visit, the children experienced one out of two unique events. When not demonstrated, the props for these events were locked away in two similar, but distinct boxes. When returning 1 week later, the children's spontaneous utterances (e.g., "There is an elephant inside the red cupboard") were recorded while waiting in front of the distinct boxes. Parents had been carefully instructed not to prompt the children. The results from naïve coders revealed that many of the children talked spontaneously about the specific event that they had experienced at the first visit (Hjuler et al., 2021; Krøjgaard et al., 2017; Sonne et al., 2019, 2021). Notably, whereas the 3‐ and 4‐year‐olds performed similarly when comparing their spontaneous recollections, the 4‐year‐olds outperformed the 3‐years‐olds on subsequent control questions requiring strategic retrieval (Krøjgaard et al., 2017; Sonne et al., 2020). Thus, the results from these studies revealed an important, but hitherto overlooked, interaction between age of the children and retrieval mode. However, it remains unknown whether this pattern of results would also be present after longer delays. From a developmental perspective this is important, because even though very young children are capable of encoding, storing, and retrieving past experiences (Bauer et al., 2000), older children are typically able to retain memories over longer delays (Bauer, 2007). For instance, studies have found that 3‐year‐olds, but not 4‐year‐olds, failed to retain memories following a delay (Hayne & Imuta, 2011; Scarf et al., 2013). Furthermore, scholars have requested more research regarding how variability in retrieval varies with age and contributes to long‐term recall abilities (Lukowski & Bauer, 2014). Finally, such knowledge would also have applied relevance, for instance, in situations, where children serve as witnesses.</p> <p>Using the experimental paradigm introduced in earlier work (Krøjgaard et al., 2017; Sonne et al., 2020) combined with a systematic manipulation of retention time, we here examined almost 3‐ and 4‐year‐old children's ability to recall both a unique and distinct event after 1, 4.5, and 13 weeks, respectively, by means of both spontaneous and strategic retrieval. Due to the highly distinct retrieval cues, and distinctive events, we expected that both age groups would be able to spontaneously recall the experienced event in the laboratory across the three retention intervals. Following normal forgetting, we also expected the frequency of both spontaneous and strategic memories to drop as the retention interval increased. Because spontaneous retrieval is less dependent on the maturation of prefrontal cortex, we expected no difference between the two age groups regarding their performance on this type of memory (e.g. Krøjgaard et al., 2017; Sonne et al., 2021). However, we expected that the ability to recall strategically would yield an age difference, as strategic retrieval depends on prefrontal structures and is generally more cognitively demanding. Since the present manipulation of the retention interval was novel, our hypotheses were mainly exploratory.</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-2">METHOD</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0157891572-3">Sample</hd> <p>The data were collection in the period 8th of March 2017–13th of April 2018. The sample consisted of 226 children. Half of these children (<emph>n</emph> = 113) were nearly 3‐year‐olds (59 girls, <emph>M</emph><subs>age</subs> = 35.52, <emph>SD</emph> = 0.50, range 34.70–35.90) and the other half (<emph>n</emph> = 113) were nearly 4‐year‐olds (62 girls, <emph>M</emph><subs>age</subs> = 46.42, <emph>SD</emph> = 0.50, range 43.80–48.60). Three additional children were tested, but excluded from the analyses (experimental error: one; illness or unwilling to participate: two). The children were recruited from birth registries from the National Board of Health in Denmark. All the children were healthy, full‐term, and predominantly White, mostly from Aarhus municipality, in families with middle to higher SES based on educational level. The children received a small present for participating. The study had been approved by the local ethics committee, and prior to participation, written and informed consent was obtained by the parents.</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-4">Materials</hd> <p>The children were tested in a sparsely furnished 16 m<sups>2</sups> room. Two distinct and locked boxes were placed right next to each other along the wall: To the left, a red metal box (containing the props for the Teddy event) and to the right, a gray plastic box (containing the props for the Game event). The Teddy event involved two mechanical teddies: Elly, a blue elephant, who could wriggle its ears while singing; and Alfred, a light‐brown dog, who could wriggle its ears and clap its paws while singing. The Game event contained two different games: a home‐made throwing game, involving three different colored buckets and three balls, and a bowling game, involving two balls and ten pins. The child and parent were seated on chairs at a table in front of the two boxes. All visits were video recorded for offline coding.</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-5">Design and procedure</hd> <p>Following the design used in Krøjgaard et al. (2017), each of the children visited the laboratory twice together with their parent (see Figure 1). Two experimenters (one is the first author) recruited the participants and conducted all the experiments, following a manualized protocol. Parents had been carefully instructed by mail and by phone not to let the children know what the study was about. Nor should they initiate conversations with the children and only respond briefly if being addressed by the child during the test.</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/CDV/01jul22/cdev13735-fig-0001.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMMvl7ESepq84yOvsOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="cdev13735-fig-0001.jpg" title="1 Schematic representation of the design employed. Please note that both event conditions (Teddy and Game) and retention conditions (1, 4.5, and 13 weeks) are between‐subjects" /> </p> <p></p> <p>Previous studies using the same method had all used a 1‐week retention interval. The present design expanded on previous studies by means of a between‐subjects design in which the children were randomly assigned to three different retention groups returning to the laboratory at T<subs>2</subs> after either 1 week (<emph>n</emph> = 76, thirty‐seven 3‐year‐olds, and thirty‐nine 4‐year‐olds), after 4.5 weeks (<emph>n</emph> = 74, thirty‐seven 3‐year‐olds, and thirty‐seven 4‐year‐olds), or after 13 weeks (<emph>n</emph> = 75, thirty‐nine 3‐year‐olds, and thirty‐six 4‐year‐olds). The retention group's sample sizes were based on the magnitude of effects found in previous studies. For instance, in the study by Sonne et al. (2021), thirty‐one 3‐year‐olds and thirty‐one 4‐year‐olds resulted in large effect sizes (respectively Cohen's <emph>d</emph> = 1.40 and Cohen's <emph>d</emph> = 1.30). Due to longer retention intervals, we expected an increased risk of drop‐outs, and because previous results also displayed large variability between individuals, we decided on group sizes >30 to avoid Type‐2‐errors. The retention intervals were based on research concerning forgetting functions for children, which has shown that it usually follows an exponential decrease (Bauer, 2015). The three retention intervals were determined so they increased exponentially.</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-7">The first visit: Encoding (T 1)</hd> <p>The first visit involved a two‐step procedure: (a) a 2‐min waiting period, serving as a baseline measure, and (b) an encoding session of a specific event. When seated in front of the two locked boxes, the child and parent were left alone for exactly 2 min, as the experimenter left the room in order to "do something." Everything the child might say during the waiting period at both baseline and test was recorded. After 2 min, the experimenter returned and presented the child with <emph>only one</emph> of the two highly distinct to‐be‐remembered events. Thus, half of the children for all age groups and retention intervals were allocated to the Teddy condition, whereas the other half were allocated to the Game condition. Both events were highly enjoyable and engaging and lasted app. 6 min. Between visits, the parents were asked to assess their children's vocabulary by completing an electronic version of the Danish MacArthur‐Bates Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Sentences (CDI) (Bleses et al., 2008).</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-8">The second visit: Test of spontaneous recall (T 2)</hd> <p>When returning to the laboratory after the retention interval (either 1, 4.5, or 13 weeks), the baseline procedure from the encoding session was repeated as the child (and parent) was once again waiting for exactly 2 min in front of the two distinct boxes. The only, but crucial, difference was that this time, the child knew the contents of one of the boxes, and the box as well as the entire setting could potentially serve as a cue for spontaneous recall.</p> <p>After the 2 min, the experimenter returned to the laboratory, and in order to test the children's ability to strategically retrieve the memory, the experimenter explicitly asked the children to remember the last visit to the laboratory. The test of strategic recall was always carried out <emph>after</emph> the test for potential spontaneous recall (i.e., the 2‐min waiting period) to avoid interfering spontaneous recall with prompting.</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-9">The second visit: Test of strategic recall (T 2)</hd> <p>The strategic recall procedure involved two steps: (a) a free recall session with open‐ended questions followed by (b) Yes‐No‐questions. Both types of questioning required that the child had to search for memories of the past visit. The simple Yes‐No‐questions were similar to the procedure used in the previous studies (e.g. Krøjgaard et al., 2017; Sonne et al., 2019), but because this type of questioning may be less ecologically valid (e.g. Pipe & Salmon, 2009; Sonne et al., 2020), the children were also asked open‐ended questions.</p> <p>During the free recall sequence (following Sonne et al., 2020), the experimenter was wearing a "forgetting hat." As the name implies, the child was told that when wearing the hat, the experimenter was unable to remember the previous visit, and therefore, the experimenter asked the child to tell about the previous visit by asking "What happened last time you were here?" If the child was unable to answer the question, the experimenter gave the child one prompt: "I am wearing the forgetting hat, therefore, I do not remember anything. Do you remember what happened the last time?" or "What can you tell me about your previous visit?". The free recall sequence lasted for maximum 2 min, which was identical to the spontaneous recall test.</p> <p>For the simple Yes‐No‐questions the experimenter asked the child: "Last time you were here, did you see what was in the red cupboard [gray box]?" If the child replied "yes," the question was followed by another question: "What was in the red cupboard [gray box]?".</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-10">Coding</hd> <p>Two kinds of data were obtained: (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref1">1</reflink>) Spontaneous recall based on the spontaneous utterances produced during the 2‐min waiting period at both T<subs>1</subs>‐baseline and T<subs>2</subs>‐test, and (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref2">2</reflink>) Strategic recall, which involved responses to the open‐ended questions (the free recall session) and responses to the Yes‐No‐questions at T<subs>2</subs>.</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-11">Coding of spontaneous recall</hd> <p>Similar to the previous studies (e.g. Krøjgaard et al., 2017; Sonne et al., 2019), the spontaneous utterances were coded by means of a predefined Word List (see Table 1) and a Coding Scheme based on the recordings from the 2‐min waiting periods at T<subs>1</subs> and T<subs>2</subs>.</p> <p>1 TABLEThe Word List measure includes the target words from the two events (Teddy and Game), and "unspecific" words indicating that the child have been to the laboratory before, but without specifically referring to the events. Please note that conjugations and synonyms are also included</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="top"><tr><th align="left">Teddy condition</th><th align="left">Game condition</th><th align="left">Unspecific</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left">Alfred</td><td align="left">Ball</td><td align="left">"Always"</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Animal</td><td align="left">Blue</td><td align="left">"Have been"</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Button</td><td align="left">Bowling</td><td align="left">"Again"</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Clap</td><td align="left">Bucket</td><td align="left">"Last time"</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Dog</td><td align="left">Game</td><td align="left">"Key"</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Elephant</td><td align="left">Green</td><td align="left">"Unlock"</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Elly</td><td align="left">Hit</td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left">Ear</td><td align="left">Medal</td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left">Hug</td><td align="left">Pin</td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left">Lives</td><td align="left">Play</td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left">Music</td><td align="left">Prize</td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left">Push</td><td align="left">Red</td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left">Sing</td><td align="left">Roll</td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left">Take/bring out or get</td><td align="left">Throw</td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left">Teddy</td><td align="left">Turn over</td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left">Turn on</td><td align="left">Win</td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left">Wiggle</td><td align="left">Yellow</td><td align="left" /></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>A primary coder undertook all coding of the data, and 20% of the data were re‐coded by a secondary coder. The coders were blinded with regards to time (T<subs>1</subs> vs T<subs>2</subs>), event (Teddy vs. Game) and retention interval (1 week vs. 4.5 weeks vs. 13 weeks). Inter‐rater agreement was high: 98.5%.</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-12">Word list</hd> <p>The Word List contained words related specifically to the Teddy (e.g., "elephant") or Game event (e.g., "ball"), and an additional list of unspecific words, which indicated that the child had visited the laboratory before (e.g., "Last time we were here..."). In order to count as an eligible spontaneous recollection at T<subs>2</subs>, the child had to utter statements referring to the specific event (Teddy or Game) the child actually experienced at T<subs>1</subs>, or referring to the general experience of being tested in the laboratory (but <emph>not</emph> refer to the event the given child did not experience), by using words from the Word List. Furthermore, multiple appearances of the same words only counted if the additional utterances was deemed novel (i.e., simple repetitions did not count). Based on these criteria, all eligible incidents of uttered words from the Word List were recorded for each child and a sum score computed.</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-13">Coding scheme</hd> <p>The Coding Scheme was an additional measure developed to capture spontaneous utterances indicative of memory, which may not be captured by the fixed Word List.</p> <p>Following Krøjgaard et al. (2017), the coding scheme consisted of different questions relating to six dimensions: (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref3">1</reflink>) language, (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref4">2</reflink>) gesture, (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref5">3</reflink>) reliving, (<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref6">4</reflink>) action details, (<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref7">5</reflink>) spatial details, and (<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref8">6</reflink>) social details. All the recordings of the 2‐min waiting sequences from both the first and the second visit were divided into 12 distinct time slots, each lasting 10 s. Inspired by Levine et al. (2002), at every time slot, the coders had to respond to questions related to the listed dimensions (e.g., Does the child by means of <emph>gesture</emph> refer to knowledge that originates from a previous visit (by pointing toward where the specific event took place)? Does the child's verbal or non‐verbal behavior indicate that he or she mentally <emph>re</emph>‐<emph>lives</emph> parts of a previous visit?). For each question, each 10‐s time‐slot could give either a single score ("1") or no score ("0"). For example, a 4‐year‐old boy returning after 13 weeks excited stated, "When she returns, she will take out that teddy [pointing toward the red cup board], and then she has to push it, and then it will do like this with its ears without touching them [by use of his hands, the boy wiggles his ears]!" This utterance led to scorings in dimension 1 (language), 2 (gesture), 3 (reliving), and 4 (action details) as the statement was verbal, he pointed to the gray box, it was expressed with enthusiasm, and action details were explained. Just like with the Word List measure (cf. section 2.4.2) a child could only obtain a hit on the Coding Scheme if the child's behavior was accompanied with a verbal expression related to the target event (e.g., "teddy", "elephant", "ball").</p> <p>For each of the six dimensions, a sum score was calculated based on the number of hits obtained on the 12 different time slots. These six sum scores were added to form a scale (cf. Krojgaard et al., 2017; Sonne et al., 2019). A reliability analysis showed an acceptable internal consistency, Cronbach's α = 0.875. However, when removing the Social dimension, Cronbach's α increased (= 0.900), but did not otherwise affect the overall results. In order to obtain the highest possible internal consistency, a grand sum score for the remaining five dimensions was calculated and used in the following analyses.</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-14">Coding of strategic recall</hd> <p>The children's responses to the free recall questions were similar to the spontaneous recall based on the Word List and Coding Scheme. Although the free recall session lasted 2 min, the coding stopped after maximally one prompt. The reasoning was that previous research had shown that when allowing multiple prompts, the youngest age group received many more prompts compared to the older age group, and that the number of prompts strongly affected the performance on the free recall (Sonne et al., 2020). Thus, in order to test the two age groups on equal terms, we used the modified procedure terminating the coding after one prompt.</p> <p>The coding of the children's responses to the Yes‐No‐questions was made during testing, and hence simply noted whether the child's answer was correct ("yes" or "no"). Since this coding process was straightforward, re‐coding was not considered necessary.</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-15">RESULTS</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0157891572-16">Preliminary analysis</hd> <p>As expected, the oldest age group showed a significantly higher productive vocabulary score collected from the CDI (<emph>M</emph> = 632.94, <emph>SD</emph> = 87.90) than the youngest age group (<emph>M</emph> = 568.87, <emph>SD</emph> = 99.62), <emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref9">1</reflink>, 223) = 25.286, <emph>p</emph> < .001, <ephtml> <math altimg="urn:x-wiley:00093920:media:cdev13735:cdev13735-math-0002" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><msubsup><mi>η</mi><mi>p</mi><mn>2</mn></msubsup><mo>=</mo><mo>.</mo><mn>102</mn></mrow></math> </ephtml> . The analyses were based on 225 participants, as we did not obtain CDI data from one participant. Furthermore, when examining the two age groups separately, an ANOVA with Retention Interval (1 week vs. 4.5 weeks vs. 13 weeks) and Condition (Teddy vs. Game) as between‐subjects factors, and children's productive vocabulary scores as the dependent variable, revealed no effects of neither Retention Interval nor Condition for the 3‐year‐olds (all <emph>p</emph>s > .052) and for 4‐year‐olds (all <emph>p</emph>s > .930). These results indicate that the randomization of the children with respect to vocabulary had worked.</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-17">Word count and behavioral coding of memory expressions: parametric analyses</hd> <p>We first present parametric analyses on memory expressions coded in terms of congruent words and verbal and non‐verbal behavior. We present these analyses separately for spontaneous and strategic retrieval, broken down by the three retention intervals.</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-18">Spontaneous recall</hd> <p>Since the two events were counterbalanced across children and conditions, and as no overall difference in performances between the two event conditions were found, eligible spontaneous recollections from the two events were collapsed in all analyses. No false positives (i.e., talking about the event that was not experienced at T<subs>1</subs>) were obtained, and except for three single cases (see below), none of the children obtained "hits" at T<subs>1</subs> (i.e., uttered words from the Word List at baseline <emph>before</emph> being exposed to the events). Therefore, we could analyze whether the mean number of eligible spontaneous utterances collected during the 2‐min waiting period at test (T<subs>2</subs>) differed from zero by means of simple one‐sample <emph>t</emph>‐tests tested against "0." Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics and <emph>t</emph>‐tests from both events combined. The three exceptions, in which children at T<subs>1</subs> (i.e., <emph>before</emph> being exposed to the events) coincidentally talked about one of the two events (for instance, one boy asked his parent for a teddy) all came from three 4‐year‐old children. These utterances were (coding‐wise correctly) credited by the naïve coder, and for the oldest children returning after respectively 1 and 4.5 weeks, the one‐sample <emph>t</emph>‐tests were tested against a value slightly above zero, equivalent to the exact means obtained at T<subs>1</subs> (see Table 2).</p> <p>2 TABLEDescriptive statistics and t‐tests for the spontaneous recall based on the Word List measures and the Coding Scheme Grand sum score measure (all Coding Scheme sum scores combined) at T 2 for both events combined across age groups and retention intervals. The d‐values under the One‐sample t‐tests refer to effect sizes (i.e., Cohen's d)</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="top"><tr><th align="left" /><th align="left" /><th align="left">3‐year‐olds (<italic>n</italic> = 113)</th><th align="left">4‐year‐olds (<italic>n</italic> = 113)</th></tr><tr><th align="left">Descriptives</th><th align="left">One‐sample <italic>t</italic>‐tests (tested against the value <italic>x</italic>)</th><th align="left">Descriptives</th><th align="left">One‐sample <italic>t</italic>‐tests (tested against the value <italic>x</italic>)</th></tr><tr><th align="left">Retention</th><th align="left">Measure</th><th align="left"><italic>N</italic></th><th align="left"><italic>M</italic></th><th align="left"><italic>SD</italic></th><th align="left"><italic>x</italic></th><th align="left"><italic>t</italic></th><th align="left"><italic>df</italic></th><th align="left"><italic>p</italic></th><th align="left"><italic>d</italic></th><th align="left"><italic>N</italic></th><th align="left"><italic>M</italic></th><th align="left"><italic>SD</italic></th><th align="left"><italic>x</italic></th><th align="left"><italic>t</italic></th><th align="left"><italic>df</italic></th><th align="left"><italic>p</italic></th><th align="left"><italic>d</italic></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left">1 week</td><td align="left">Word List</td><td align="left">37</td><td align="char" char=".">0.73</td><td align="char" char=".">1.10</td><td align="left">0</td><td align="char" char=".">4.05</td><td align="left">36</td><td align="char" char="."><.001</td><td align="char" char=".">1.35</td><td align="left">39</td><td align="char" char=".">0.95</td><td align="char" char=".">1.45</td><td align="left">0.03</td><td align="char" char=".">3.96</td><td align="left">38</td><td align="char" char="."><.001</td><td align="char" char=".">1.29</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Coding Scheme Grand sum score</td><td align="left">37</td><td align="char" char=".">1.51</td><td align="char" char=".">3.27</td><td align="left">0</td><td align="char" char=".">4.46</td><td align="left">36</td><td align="char" char="."><.001</td><td align="char" char=".">1.48</td><td align="left">39</td><td align="char" char=".">2.53</td><td align="char" char=".">2.99</td><td align="left">0.03</td><td align="char" char=".">5.24</td><td align="left">38</td><td align="char" char="."><.001</td><td align="char" char=".">1.69</td></tr><tr><td align="left">4.5 weeks</td><td align="left">Word List</td><td align="left">37</td><td align="char" char=".">0.84</td><td align="char" char=".">1.61</td><td align="left">0</td><td align="char" char=".">3.17</td><td align="left">36</td><td align="char" char=".">.003</td><td align="char" char=".">1.06</td><td align="left">38</td><td align="char" char=".">1.26</td><td align="char" char=".">2.01</td><td align="left">0.11</td><td align="char" char=".">3.54</td><td align="left">37</td><td align="char" char=".">.001</td><td align="char" char=".">1.67</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Coding Scheme Grand sum score</td><td align="left">37</td><td align="char" char=".">1.84</td><td align="char" char=".">3.27</td><td align="left">0</td><td align="char" char=".">3.42</td><td align="left">36</td><td align="char" char=".">.002</td><td align="char" char=".">1.13</td><td align="left">38</td><td align="char" char=".">2.44</td><td align="char" char=".">3.89</td><td align="left">0.11</td><td align="char" char=".">3.71</td><td align="left">37</td><td align="char" char=".">.001</td><td align="char" char=".">1.21</td></tr><tr><td align="left">13 weeks</td><td align="left">Word List</td><td align="left">39</td><td align="char" char=".">0.77</td><td align="char" char=".">1.47</td><td align="left">0</td><td align="char" char=".">3.25</td><td align="left">38</td><td align="char" char=".">.002</td><td align="char" char=".">1.05</td><td align="left">36</td><td align="char" char=".">1.28</td><td align="char" char=".">1.70</td><td align="left">0</td><td align="char" char=".">4.51</td><td align="left">35</td><td align="char" char="."><.001</td><td align="char" char=".">1.52</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Coding Scheme Grand sum score</td><td align="left">39</td><td align="char" char=".">2.10</td><td align="char" char=".">2.10</td><td align="left">0</td><td align="char" char=".">3.80</td><td align="left">38</td><td align="char" char=".">.001</td><td align="char" char=".">1.24</td><td align="left">36</td><td align="char" char=".">2.47</td><td align="char" char=".">2.84</td><td align="left">0</td><td align="char" char=".">5.22</td><td align="left">35</td><td align="char" char="."><.001</td><td align="char" char=".">1.76</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>1 Note</p> <p>2 The hits are based on the condition specific words (e.g., "elephant", "ball") as well as the condition unspecific hits (e.g., "again", "last time"). The <emph>t</emph>‐tests are two‐tailed. Both the Word List variable and the Coding Scheme sum score variable were not tested against "0" in the 1‐week and 4.5‐week retention groups for the oldest children due to three cases of false positive scores during baseline.</p> <p>At the T<subs>2</subs>‐test, the children in both age groups and across all of the three retention conditions reliably produced spontaneous utterances of the event experienced during encoding. In order to examine whether age or retention interval affected the results, an ANOVA was conducted with Age Group (3‐ vs. 4‐year‐olds) and Retention (1 week vs. 4.5 weeks vs. 13 weeks) as between‐subjects factors, and the Word List sum score as the dependent variable. No main effects were found with neither Age group (<emph>F</emph>[<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref10">1</reflink>, 220] = 3.336, <emph>p</emph> = .069, <ephtml> <math altimg="urn:x-wiley:00093920:media:cdev13735:cdev13735-math-0003" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><msubsup><mi>η</mi><mi>p</mi><mn>2</mn></msubsup><mo>=</mo><mo>.</mo><mn>015</mn></mrow></math> </ephtml> ) nor Retention (<emph>F</emph>[<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref11">2</reflink>, 220] = 0.400, <emph>p</emph> = .671, <ephtml> <math altimg="urn:x-wiley:00093920:media:cdev13735:cdev13735-math-0004" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><msubsup><mi>η</mi><mi>p</mi><mn>2</mn></msubsup><mo>=</mo><mo>.</mo><mn>004</mn></mrow></math> </ephtml> ), and furthermore, no interaction was found between Age group and Retention, <emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref12">2</reflink>, 220) = 0.210, <emph>p</emph> = .811, <ephtml> <math altimg="urn:x-wiley:00093920:media:cdev13735:cdev13735-math-0005" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><msubsup><mi>η</mi><mi>p</mi><mn>2</mn></msubsup><mo>=</mo><mo>.</mo><mn>002</mn></mrow></math> </ephtml> (see Figure 2).</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/CDV/01jul22/cdev13735-fig-0002.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMMvl7ESepq84yOvsOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="cdev13735-fig-0002.jpg" title="2 Displays the mean number of words (±1 SE) produced from the Word List measure at T2 during respectively the spontaneous recall test and the strategic recall test. Please note that the retention conditions are between‐subjects" /> </p> <p></p> <p>These results were replicated, when running a similar analysis with the Grand sum score (all sum scores combined) from the Coding Scheme as the dependent variable. Again, no main effects were found of either Age Group (<emph>F</emph>[<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref13">1</reflink>, 220] = 2.550, <emph>p</emph> = .112, <ephtml> <math altimg="urn:x-wiley:00093920:media:cdev13735:cdev13735-math-0006" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><msubsup><mi>η</mi><mi>p</mi><mn>2</mn></msubsup><mo>=</mo><mo>.</mo><mn>011</mn></mrow></math> </ephtml> ) or Retention (<emph>F</emph>[<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref14">2</reflink>, 220] = 0.131, <emph>p</emph> = .877, <ephtml> <math altimg="urn:x-wiley:00093920:media:cdev13735:cdev13735-math-0007" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><msubsup><mi>η</mi><mi>p</mi><mn>2</mn></msubsup><mo>=</mo><mo>.</mo><mn>001</mn></mrow></math> </ephtml> ), and no interaction was found between Age group and Retention, <emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref15">2</reflink>, 220) = 0.168, <emph>p</emph> = .846, <ephtml> <math altimg="urn:x-wiley:00093920:media:cdev13735:cdev13735-math-0008" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><msubsup><mi>η</mi><mi>p</mi><mn>2</mn></msubsup><mo>=</mo><mo>.</mo><mn>002</mn></mrow></math> </ephtml> (Figure 3).</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/CDV/01jul22/cdev13735-fig-0003.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMMvl7ESepq84yOvsOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="cdev13735-fig-0003.jpg" title="3 Displays the mean number of hits (±1 SE) produced on the Coding Scheme Grand sum score measure at T2 during the spontaneous recall test and the strategic recall test respectively. Please note that the retention conditions are between‐subjects" /> </p> <p></p> <p>Pearson correlations revealed that the children's productive vocabulary (CDI‐score) did not correlate with the performance on spontaneous recall (Word List sum score) in neither the youngest age group (<emph>r</emph> = 0.070, <emph>p</emph> = .462 [two‐tailed]) or in the oldest age group (<emph>r</emph> = 0.056, <emph>p</emph> = .559 [two‐tailed]). Thus, spontaneous recall seems to be independent of vocabulary.</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-21">Strategic recall</hd> <p>The parametric analyses for Strategic (Free) Recall followed a similar procedure to Spontaneous Recall. Again, an ANOVA was conducted with the sum score hits on the Word List as the dependent variable, but this time from the Free Recall test.</p> <p>The ANOVA based on Word List‐Free Recall showed no main effect of Retention, <emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref16">2</reflink>, 220) = 1.582, <emph>p</emph> = .208, <ephtml> <math altimg="urn:x-wiley:00093920:media:cdev13735:cdev13735-math-0009" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><msubsup><mi>η</mi><mi>p</mi><mn>2</mn></msubsup><mo>=</mo><mo>.</mo><mn>014</mn></mrow></math> </ephtml> , but revealed a significant main effect of Age group, <emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref17">1</reflink>, 220) =22.399, <emph>p</emph> <.001, <ephtml> <math altimg="urn:x-wiley:00093920:media:cdev13735:cdev13735-math-0010" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><msubsup><mi>η</mi><mi>p</mi><mn>2</mn></msubsup><mo>=</mo><mo>.</mo><mn>089</mn></mrow></math> </ephtml> , as the 4‐year‐olds (<emph>M</emph> = 0.86, <emph>SD</emph> = 1.26) reliably outperformed their younger peers (<emph>M</emph> = 0.22, <emph>SD</emph> = 0.70). Furthermore, there was no interaction between Age Group and Retention, <emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref18">2</reflink>, 220) = 0.292, <emph>p</emph> = .747, <ephtml> <math altimg="urn:x-wiley:00093920:media:cdev13735:cdev13735-math-0011" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><msubsup><mi>η</mi><mi>p</mi><mn>2</mn></msubsup><mo>=</mo><mo>.</mo><mn>003</mn></mrow></math> </ephtml> (See Figure 2).</p> <p>Follow‐up <emph>t</emph>‐tests revealed that for all three retention intervals, there was a significant difference between the two age groups, showing that the oldest age groups systematically outperformed the youngest age group (1 week: 4‐year‐olds [<emph>M</emph> = 1.00, <emph>SD</emph> = 1.48] vs. 3‐year‐olds [<emph>M</emph> = 0.30, <emph>SD</emph> = 0.99], <emph>t</emph>(<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref19">67</reflink>) = 2.43, <emph>p</emph> = .018, <emph>d</emph> = 0.55; 4.5 weeks: 4‐year‐olds [<emph>M</emph> = 0.95, <emph>SD</emph> = 1.25] vs. 3‐year‐olds [<emph>M</emph> = 0.24, <emph>SD</emph> = 0.55], <emph>t</emph>(<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref20">51</reflink>) = 3.17, <emph>p</emph> = .003, <emph>d</emph> = 0.72; 13 weeks: 4‐year‐olds [<emph>M</emph> = 0.61, <emph>SD</emph> = 0.96] vs. 3‐year‐olds [<emph>M</emph> = 0.13, <emph>SD</emph> = 0.47], <emph>t</emph>(<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref21">50</reflink>) = 2.72, <emph>p</emph> = .009, <emph>d</emph> = 0.64).</p> <p>Likewise, an ANOVA with the Grand sum score from the Coding Scheme‐Free Recall as the dependent variable replicated the results from the Word List‐Free Recall. No interaction was found between Age Group and Retention, <emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref22">2</reflink>, 220) = 0.021, <emph>p</emph> = .979, <ephtml> <math altimg="urn:x-wiley:00093920:media:cdev13735:cdev13735-math-0012" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><msubsup><mi>η</mi><mi>p</mi><mn>2</mn></msubsup><mo>=</mo><mo>.</mo><mn>000</mn></mrow></math> </ephtml> . Additionally, there was no main effect of Retention, <emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref23">2</reflink>, 220) = 0.804, <emph>p</emph> = .449, <ephtml> <math altimg="urn:x-wiley:00093920:media:cdev13735:cdev13735-math-0013" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><msubsup><mi>η</mi><mi>p</mi><mn>2</mn></msubsup><mo>=</mo><mo>.</mo><mn>007</mn></mrow></math> </ephtml> , whereas there was a significant main effect of Age group, <emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref24">1</reflink>, 220) = 23.558, <emph>p</emph> < .001, <ephtml> <math altimg="urn:x-wiley:00093920:media:cdev13735:cdev13735-math-0014" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><msubsup><mi>η</mi><mi>p</mi><mn>2</mn></msubsup><mo>=</mo><mo>.</mo><mn>097</mn></mrow></math> </ephtml> . Again, it corresponded to the results from the Word List‐Free Recall measure, as the oldest age group (<emph>M</emph> = 1.85, <emph>SD</emph> = 2.45) reliably outperformed the youngest age group (<emph>M</emph> = 0.52, <emph>SD</emph> = 1.55) (See Figure 3).</p> <p>Similarly to the Word List‐Free Recall measure, follow‐up <emph>t</emph>‐tests on the Coding Scheme‐Free Recall revealed that for all three retention intervals, there was a significant difference between the two age groups, showing that the oldest age groups systematically outperformed the youngest age group (1 week: 4‐year‐olds [<emph>M</emph> = 1.92, <emph>SD</emph> = 2.69] vs. 3‐year‐olds [<emph>M</emph> = 0.54, <emph>SD</emph> = 1.77], <emph>t</emph>(<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref25">67</reflink>) = 2.66, <emph>p</emph> = .010, <emph>d</emph> = 0.60; 4.5 weeks: 4‐year‐olds [<emph>M</emph> = 2.05, <emph>SD</emph> = 2.45] vs. 3‐year‐olds [<emph>M</emph> = 0.70, <emph>SD</emph> = 1.64], <emph>t</emph>(<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref26">64</reflink>) = 2.80, <emph>p</emph> = .007, <emph>d</emph> = 0.64; 13 weeks: 4‐year‐olds [<emph>M</emph> = 1.58, <emph>SD</emph> = 2.18] vs. 3‐year‐olds [<emph>M</emph> = 0.33, <emph>SD</emph> = 1.17], <emph>t</emph>(<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref27">53</reflink>) = 3.05, <emph>p</emph> = .004, <emph>d</emph> = 0.72).</p> <p>Similar to the spontaneous recall, Pearson correlations again revealed no correlations between the children's productive vocabulary (CDI‐score) and the performance on strategic recall (Word List‐Free Recall) in the youngest age group (<emph>r</emph> = 0.089, <emph>p</emph> = .350 [two‐tailed]). However, in the oldest age group a positive correlation was found (<emph>r</emph> = 0.279, <emph>p</emph> = .003 [two‐tailed]).</p> <p>To summarize the parametric analyses: While there was no difference between the two age groups when considering spontaneous recollections, the 4‐year‐old children systematically outperformed the 3‐year‐olds on strategic recall.</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-22">Percentages of children showing evidence of spontaneous and strategic recall</hd> <p>To simplify the presentation of the findings, we analyzed the relative frequency of children in the two age groups who showed evidence of spontaneous and strategic recall in the three delay conditions. Memory evidence was operationalized as a score ≥1 (i.e., one or more hits) on both the Word List and on the Coding Scheme measures.</p> <p>As shown in Figure 4, the percentages of spontaneous recollections were systematic regardless of measure (i.e., word list or coding scheme) across both age groups and the three retention intervals. Clearly, the children in both age groups had spontaneous recollections. Obviously, these percentages should not be compared to chance (i.e., 50%), because the children were not asked any questions or in any other way prompted during this part of the test. In fact, any divergence from zero is noteworthy. More than one‐third of the youngest children had one or more spontaneous utterances in all of the three retention groups, while for the oldest age groups, about half of the children had spontaneous utterances across the three retention intervals.</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/CDV/01jul22/cdev13735-fig-0004.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMMvl7ESepq84yOvsOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="cdev13735-fig-0004.jpg" title="4 (a and b) Percentage of children reporting a memory both spontaneously and strategically. The percentages are based on frequencies from the Word List (panel a) and Coding Scheme (panel b) measure at T2. Note that * refers to p < .05 from the Chi‐Square test and Fischer's Exact test" /> </p> <p></p> <p>When comparing the frequencies by means of Chi‐square tests using 2 × 2 contingency tables, no significant differences were found between the two age groups in any of the retention groups for either the Word List measure or Grand sum score Coding Scheme measure (see Table 3). Based on the odds ratios, on average the odds of the oldest age group having spontaneous recollections were 1.54 times higher (range = 1.35–1.80) than the youngest age group having spontaneous recollections. Thus, the nonparametric analyses based on frequencies closely mirrored the results obtained by the parametric analyses.</p> <p>3 TABLEDisplay the Chi‐square test and Fischer's Exact test comparing the two age groups' (3‐ and 4‐year‐olds) frequencies of respectively spontaneous recall based on the Word List and Coding Scheme Grand sum score measure and strategic recall based on the Word List‐Free Recall and Coding Scheme‐Free Recall Grand sum score measure along with the Odds ratio</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="top"><tr><th align="left">Retention</th><th align="left">Measure</th><th align="left">Chi‐square (χ²)</th><th align="left"><italic>p</italic></th><th align="left">Odds ratio</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left">Spontaneous recall</td></tr><tr><td align="left">1 week</td><td align="left">Word List</td><td align="left">χ² (1) = 0.882</td><td align="char" char=".">.348</td><td align="char" char=".">1.54</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Coding Scheme Grand sum score</td><td align="left">χ² (1) = 1.317</td><td align="char" char=".">.251</td><td align="char" char=".">1.68</td></tr><tr><td align="left">4.5 weeks</td><td align="left">Word List</td><td align="left">χ² (1) = 0.720</td><td align="char" char=".">.720</td><td align="char" char=".">1.47</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Coding Scheme Grand sum score</td><td align="left">χ² (1) = 0.368</td><td align="char" char=".">.544</td><td align="char" char=".">1.35</td></tr><tr><td align="left">13 weeks</td><td align="left">Word List</td><td align="left">χ² (1) = 1.548</td><td align="char" char=".">.213</td><td align="char" char=".">1.80</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Coding Scheme Grand sum score</td><td align="left">χ² (1) = 0.633</td><td align="char" char=".">.426</td><td align="char" char=".">1.43</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Strategic recall</td></tr><tr><td align="left">1 week</td><td align="left">Word List‐Free Recall</td><td align="left">(Fischer's Exact)</td><td align="char" char=".">.002</td><td align="char" char=".">6.44</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Coding Scheme‐Free Recall Grand sum score</td><td align="left">(Fischer's Exact)</td><td align="char" char=".">.002</td><td align="char" char=".">6.44</td></tr><tr><td align="left">4.5 weeks</td><td align="left">Word List‐Free Recall</td><td align="left">χ² (1) = 7.996</td><td align="char" char=".">.005</td><td align="char" char=".">4.34</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Coding Scheme‐Free Recall Grand sum score</td><td align="left">χ² (1) = 7.996</td><td align="char" char=".">.005</td><td align="char" char=".">4.34</td></tr><tr><td align="left">13 weeks</td><td align="left">Word List‐Free Recall</td><td align="left">(Fischer's Exact)</td><td align="char" char=".">.004</td><td align="char" char=".">7.07</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Coding Scheme‐Free Recall Grand sum score</td><td align="left">(Fischer's Exact)</td><td align="char" char=".">.002</td><td align="char" char=".">7.95</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>Similar to spontaneous recall, we also calculated the percentages for strategic recollections on the data from the Word List‐Free Recall and Grand sum score Coding Scheme‐Free Recall (see Figure 4).</p> <p>Analogous to the percentages for the spontaneous recall, about half of the children in the oldest age group had strategic recollections. However, for the youngest age group, the number of children having strategic recollections was very different as almost none of the children had strategic recollections (see Figure 4). This striking difference between the two age groups was supported when comparing these frequencies by means of a Chi‐square tests and Fisher's exact test using 2 × 2 contingency tables. A significant association was found between age group and strategic Free Recall recollections in all of the three retention groups (see Table 3). On average, the odds of the 4‐year‐olds having strategic recollections were 6.10 times higher (range = 4.34–7.95) than the 3‐year‐olds having strategic recollections, which is notably different from the odds‐ratio for the spontaneous recall, where the oldest children on average had 1.54 times higher odds of having spontaneous recollections compared to the youngest children.</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-24">Yes‐no‐questions</hd> <p>When the children were asked directly about the content of the two boxes using standard Yes‐No‐questions, nonparametric binomial tests (tested against the value of <emph>p</emph> = .50, two tailed) showed that across the three retention groups, the children in both age groups performed above chance level (see Figure 5) when being asked about the Known Box (i.e., the box they had been shown the contents of during the first visit). However, when looking at the two age groups separately, the 3‐year‐olds had difficulties answering the question about the Unknown Box (i.e., the box, they had <emph>not</emph> seen the contents of). This was not the case for the 4‐year‐olds.</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/CDV/01jul22/cdev13735-fig-0005.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMMvl7ESepq84yOvsOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="cdev13735-fig-0005.jpg" title="5 Percentage of correct replies to the known vs. unknown box based on the Strategic Recall: Yes‐No‐Questions (e.g., Did the child know the content of the two boxes?). Note that * refers to the p‐values from the Binomial test, test‐value: p = .50 (two‐tailed)" /> </p> <p></p> <p>To examine the effect of retention interval and age on the Strategic Recall‐Yes‐No‐questions, a sum score was created consisting of the number of correct replies to the two standard questions (range 0–2). An ANOVA with Retention (1 week vs. 4.5 weeks vs. 13 weeks) and Age Group (35 vs. 46) as between‐subjects variables and the sum score as the dependent variable displayed no main effect of Retention: <emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref28">2</reflink>, 220) = 2.048, <emph>p</emph> = .131, <ephtml> <math altimg="urn:x-wiley:00093920:media:cdev13735:cdev13735-math-0015" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><msubsup><mi>η</mi><mi>p</mi><mn>2</mn></msubsup><mo>=</mo><mo>.</mo><mn>018</mn></mrow></math> </ephtml> , but a large main effect of Age Group: <emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref29">1</reflink>, 220) = 43.646, <emph>p</emph> <.001, <ephtml> <math altimg="urn:x-wiley:00093920:media:cdev13735:cdev13735-math-0016" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><msubsup><mi>η</mi><mi>p</mi><mn>2</mn></msubsup><mo>=</mo><mo>.</mo><mn>116</mn></mrow></math> </ephtml> . Again, the oldest age group had a reliably higher sum score (<emph>M</emph> = 1.68, <emph>SD</emph> = 0.487) than the youngest age group (<emph>M</emph> = 1.19, <emph>SD</emph> = 0.610). Thus, the result replicated previous findings (Krøjgaard et al., 2017; Sonne et al., 2019) and showed a pattern very similar to the results obtained in the Strategic Recall – Free Recall.</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-26">DISCUSSION</hd> <p>The present study adds new insights into the development of memory in early childhood by systematically examining spontaneous versus strategic recall of a unique event across extended delays in 3‐ and 4‐year‐old children. We demonstrate that young children can provide spontaneous recollections across different and substantial retention intervals as more than one‐third of both the 3‐ and 4‐year‐old children had spontaneous recollection across 1‐, 4.5‐, and 13‐week retention intervals. Two important issues seem to stand out. First, as predicted, the findings replicated the striking interaction between age and retrieval mode found in previous studies using the same paradigm, but this time across three and longer retention intervals. Whereas the 4‐year‐olds clearly outperformed the 3‐year‐olds in strategic recall regardless of using free recall or Yes‐No‐questions, the spontaneous recollections, again regardless of measure, were unaffected by age. Second, surprisingly and in contrast to our predictions, the retention interval did <emph>not</emph> affect the children's memory performance, regardless of retrieval mode. These two findings will be discussed in turn.</p> <p>It is well‐established that long‐term memory for events improves with age (e.g. Bauer, 2007; Bauer et al., 2000; Howe & O'Sullivan, 1997). However, with very few exceptions, previous developmental studies on long‐term memory for events have required the children to strategically retrieve their memories (i.e., "Tell me about...", Hayne et al., 2015, or "Show me how...", Bauer et al., 2004), either out of context (e.g., Hamond & Fivush, 1991) or in context, but with the lack of distinctive cues (e.g., Hayne & Imuta, 2011). The results from the present study replicate and extend these findings showing that the 4‐year‐olds systematically outperformed their 3‐year‐old peers when asked to <emph>strategically</emph> recall the experienced event. This was the case regardless of whether the children were asked "Yes‐No" questions or the supposedly more ecologically valid free recall questions.</p> <p>In contrast, the results concerning spontaneous recall were strikingly different, as no significant age differences were detected. Although potentially retrieving the same memories, the mechanism of retrieval in spontaneous retrieval appears different than in strategic retrieval, according to the present findings. Being mainly associative and less dependent on the relatively late developing prefrontal cortex, spontaneous retrieval likely is less cognitively demanding and hence probably less dependent on age (Berntsen, 2009, 2021), consistent with the present findings. Thus, spontaneous recall is not simply an alternative, yet overlooked, path to young children's memories, according to the present findings; the mode of retrieval seems to have profound effect on young children's long‐term memories for past events capabilities that warrants further research.</p> <p>Since both children and adults forget over time (Bauer, 2007; Ebbinghaus, 1885), it was surprising that retention did <emph>not</emph> affect neither the children's spontaneous nor their strategic retrieval. However, exceptions to the typical pattern of forgetting have also been identified in previous research. For instance, Fivush et al. (1987) found no overall memory differences when 2‐year‐olds talked about the past regardless of whether the to‐be‐remembered events had taken place either less, <emph>or</emph> more, than 3 months ago. Similar results were obtained by Hudson and Fivush (1991). They examined 5‐year‐olds' memories of a visit to a museum of archaeology across four retention intervals: same day, 6 weeks, 1 year, and 6 years later. When given no specific cues, the children's forgetting as a function of retention interval was substantial. However, when provided with four highly distinct cues, either verbally or by means of photographs, the amount of memory information reported by the children was unaffected by retention interval. Hence, highly distinct cues can at times provide access to distinct memories while showing no degrading effect of prolonged retention intervals.</p> <p>Following these considerations, we have reason to believe that the unique pattern of results obtained in the present study may be explained by the highly distinct and unique environmental cues that were present at recall. In the present study, each of the two to‐be‐remembered events were uniquely associated with a highly distinct box, employed in a unique setting. It seems quite unlikely that the children had ever previously been exposed to the distinct cue configuration they experienced in this study. Since distinct cues uniquely associated with a single, equally highly distinct, one‐off event, is known to facilitate memory (Berntsen et al., 2013; Nairne, 2002; Rubin, 1995), and work against forgetting by reducing interference among events associated with the same cues (Watkins & Watkins, 1975), this may have been the main reason why the retention interval did not affect the recall of these events, regardless of retrieval mode. In fact, the striking effect of providing distinct cues in their study lead Hudson and Fivush (1991, p. 357) to conclude that "[...] recall of autobiographical memories is very dependent on cuing processes, and recollection studies may greatly underestimate the number of potential autobiographical memories that only need the right cues for recall." The results from the present study appear in accordance with their conclusion.</p> <p>Furthermore, recent evidence supports the central role of cues when employing the present paradigm. Using the same design accompanied by looking‐time analyses, the results from Hjuler et al. (2021) strongly suggested that the target box served as a crucial memory cue for those of the children who had spontaneous recollections at test. Thus, the children having spontaneous recollections were—relative to matched controls not having spontaneous recollections—much more inclined to look at their "target box" during the last 10 s. before having a spontaneous memory. Similarly, the presence of highly distinct props (i.e., a "magic shrinking machine") made a substantial difference in a replication study, where 3‐year‐olds were asked to recall having experienced a "magic shrinking machine" 6 months earlier (see Dahl et al., 2015 vs. Simcock & Hayne, 2002). Thus, the combination of highly distinct cues triggering the memory of unique and equally distinct to‐be‐remembered events was probably the main reason why retention had no degrading effect on the children's memory (for similar results in great apes, see Lewis et al., 2017).</p> <p>To what extent do the spontaneous recollections reported here resemble involuntary memories in adults? We acknowledge that some children obtained "hits" on the Word List although their spontaneous utterances were sparse on details compared to the amounts of reliving, we typically see in adults. Still, since the remembered event was a one‐off experience, even these children produced a memory referring to a unique episode, and not a general routine. Moreover, an inspection of the records suggested that some of the children did provide spontaneous recollections that seemed to contain many of the distinctive qualities of adults' (involuntary) event memories. For instance, a 3‐year‐old girl (Teddy condition) stated while pointing at the red box "I think there is a dog and an elephant. They can sing. You push a button and then they sing!" Similarly, a 4‐year‐old boy (Teddy condition) said "When she returns, she will take out that teddy [pointing toward the red cup board], and then she has to push it, and then it will do like this with its ears without touching them [by use of his hands, the boy wiggles his ears]!" The two latter examples do not only contain semantic statements about the to‐be‐remembered event, but seem to involve genuine aspects of reliving. The criteria required for event or episodic memories have been debated for a long time (e.g. Bauer, 2015; Mahr & Csibra, 2018; Tulving, 1983, 1985), but genuine remembering involving reliving (as opposed to "just" knowing) is often considered the single most critical criterion endorsed by Tulving (Tulving, 1985; Wheler, Tulving, & Stuss, 1997). By providing what we believe are convincing examples of reliving, these children do, what Tulving (2005) claimed is beyond reach before the age of 4–5 years of age. In summary, although some of the children's spontaneous recollections may not resemble adult‐like reports of memories of past event, others appear to do.</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-27">Limitations and future perspectives</hd> <p>The present study should be evaluated with some limitations in mind and raises important questions for future research to clarify. One is the use of Yes‐No‐questions in the strategic retrieval condition. Potential drawbacks of the use of Yes‐No questions (e.g., "Last time you were here, did you see what was in the red cupboard [gray box?"] are (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref30">1</reflink>) that children at times provide answers to such questions even if they do not know the correct answer, and (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref31">2</reflink>) that they generally favor "yes" as a response, over "no" (Peterson et al., 1999; for an overview see e.g., Pipe & Salmon, 2009), and this trend seem especially pronounced for younger children (e.g., Fritzley et al., 2013). We cannot rule out that these typical tendencies were affecting the results, as the 3‐year‐olds, but not the 4‐year‐olds, had difficulties answering the question about the "unknown" box (i.e., the box they had not seen the contents of during the first visit). Note, however, that the addition of the Free Recall procedure—which was administered exactly to avoid the aforementioned limitations—showed similar results: When required to strategically retrieve an answer (regardless of whether the procedure was "Yes‐No" or free recall), the older children systematically outperformed their younger peers.</p> <p>Another uncertainty that the present study leaves unresolved is whether all the spontaneous recollections reported here were in fact "spontaneous?" Obviously, we cannot firmly rule out that a few of the spontaneous recollections reported when waiting in front of the two boxes at test were retrieved strategically (i.e., "false positives"). However, for at least three reasons we believe that such incidents were rare in the present study, if present at all. First, strategic retrieval is typically triggered by questions asked or similar, but the children in the present study did not experience any kind of prompting (directly or indirectly) when waiting in front of the two boxes as any prompting had been carefully avoided by design. Second, <emph>if</emph> strategic retrieval had been prominent during the 2‐min waiting periods (i.e., the test), then the older children would likely have outperformed their younger peers as was clearly the case in both of the strategic recall tasks. However, the results from the spontaneous recall test showed no age difference. Third, in our exploratory analyses, we found no significant correlations between vocabulary and mnemonic abilities in any of the two age groups when considering spontaneous recall. In contrast, vocabulary did correlate with the performance on the strategic recall in the oldest age group. If strategic retrieval had been prominent in the data concerning spontaneous memories, then we might have expected a corresponding positive correlation between vocabulary and "spontaneous" recall, at least for the oldest age group. Future research should further examine the relation between vocabulary and spontaneous versus strategic retrieval in young children. Furthermore, future research should seek to obtain response time measures for spontaneous and strategic recall to further clarify this distinction in young children.</p> <p>In a broader perspective, the results from the present study may also have relevance for the ability to pre‐experience or imagine future events, what have been coined episodic future thinking (for a review, see Atance, 2015; see also Mahr & Csibra, 2018). Although not being the initial focus of the study, the transcripts from the coding revealed that approximately 11% of the 3‐year‐olds and 14% of the 4‐year‐olds had spontaneous utterances containing expectations about the future. For instance, during the 2‐min waiting period at the second visit (i.e., the test), a 3‐year‐old girl (Teddy condition) expressed, "I hope that we will try the teddies" and 4‐year‐old boy (Game condition) stated, "We will play something. When I hit, I get medals." Since these spontaneously appearing expressions concern the children's expectations about what might happen in the future, they may be considered as examples of spontaneous episodic future thinking. Interestingly, the results from studies examining episodic future thinking in young children typically reveal a pronounced age effect. Whereas 3‐year‐olds often have difficulties in episodic future thinking, 4‐ and 5‐years‐olds are increasingly capable (e.g. Atance & Meltzoff, 2005; Suddendorf et al., 2011; Svane et al., 2021). However, studies examining episodic future thinking typically require the children to <emph>strategically</emph> pre‐experience a future scenario (i.e., in order to choose the correct tool for a future task, Suddendorf et al., 2011). In the present study—based on spontaneous recollections—the difference in prevalence of episodic future thinking between the 3‐ and 4‐years‐olds was however, negligible (11% vs. 14%). Thus, we speculate that just like age effects seem to diminish when considering spontaneous (rather than strategic) recall of past events, the same pattern might be present when imagining events in the future. Therefore, future studies on episodic future thinking in young children may consider examining in more detail whether spontaneously imagine the future is less age dependent.</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-28">Conclusion</hd> <p>In conclusion, the results from the present study suggest that highly distinct environmental cues may be powerful elicitors of spontaneous memories of past events even in very young children. By demonstrating the efficacy of spontaneous retrieval, the findings point at an important but understudied path to young children's event memories. The present study also leaves several questions for future work. Pertinent questions include whether the results replicate across even longer retention intervals and whether spontaneous recall is present in younger children? In a broader context, the present findings as well as answers to these questions are not only relevant for the theoretical understanding of memory for past events in children, but could also have potential implications for forensic or clinical psychology.</p> <hd id="AN0157891572-29">ACKNOWLEDGMENTS</hd> <p>This study has been supported by the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF89) and the VELUX FOUNDATION (VELUX10386). We thank Harlene Hayne for constructive comments regarding the data presentation of the present study. We also thank our student helpers (Louise Jensen, Yibin Zhang, Emilie Buur Kristensen, Caroline Beyer, Mette Sørensen, and Sofie Aamand) for helping with both experiments and coding of data, and not least the children and parents who participated.</p> <ref id="AN0157891572-30"> <title> REFERENCES </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref1" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Atance, C. M. (2015). Young children's thinking about the future. Child Development Perspectives, 9, 178 – 182. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12128</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" idref="ref2" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Atance, C. M., & Meltzoff, A. M. (2005). My future self: Young children's ability to anticipate and explain future states. Cognitive Development, 20, 341 – 361. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2005.05.001</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib3" idref="ref5" type="bt">3</bibl> <bibtext> Barzykowski, K., & Staugaard, S. R. (2018). How intention and monitoring your thoughts influence characteristics of autobiographical memories. British Journal of Psychology, 109, 321 – 340. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12259</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib4" idref="ref6" type="bt">4</bibl> <bibtext> Bauer, P. J. (2004). Getting explicit memory off the ground: Steps toward construction of a neuro‐developmental account of changes in the first two years of life. Developmental Review, 24, 347 – 373. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2004.08.003</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib5" idref="ref7" type="bt">5</bibl> <bibtext> Bauer, P. J. (2007). Remembering the times of our lives: Memory in infancy and beyond. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib6" idref="ref8" type="bt">6</bibl> <bibtext> Bauer, P. J. (2015). A complementary processes account of the development of childhood amnesia and a personal past. Psychological Review, 122, 204 – 231. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038939</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib7" type="bt">7</bibl> <bibtext> Bauer, P. J., Kroupina, M. G., Schwade, J. A., Dropik, P. L., & Wewerka, S. S. (1998). If memory serves, will language? Later verbal accessibility of early memories. Development and Psychopathology, 10, 655 – 679. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579498001801</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib8" type="bt">8</bibl> <bibtext> Bauer, P. J., Van Abbema, D. L., Wiebe, S. A., Cary, M. S., Phill, C., & Burch, M. M. (2004). Props, not pictures, are worth a thousand words: Verbal accessibility of early memories under different conditions of contextual Support. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18, 373 – 392. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1006</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib9" type="bt">9</bibl> <bibtext> Bauer, P. J., Wenner, J. A., Dropik, P. L., & Wewerka, S. S. (2000). Parameters of remembering and forgetting in the transition from infancy to early childhood. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 65, i – iv, 1–204. PMID: 12467092.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Berntsen, D. (2009). Involuntary autobiographical memories: An introduction to the unbidden past. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511575921</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Berntsen, D. (2010). The unbidden past: Involuntary autobiographical memories as a basic mode of remembering. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19, 138 – 142. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721410370301</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Berntsen, D. (2021). Involuntary autobiographical memories and their relation to other forms of spontaneous thoughts. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 376, 20190693. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0693</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Berntsen, D., Staugaard, S. R., & Sørensen, L. M. T. (2013). Why am I remembering this now? Predicting the occurrence of involuntary (spontaneous) episodic memories. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 142, 426 – 444. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029128</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bleses, D., Vach, W., Slott, M., Wehberg, S., Thomsen, P., Madsen, T. O., & Basbøll, H. (2008). Early vocabulary development in Danish and other languages: A CDI‐based comparison. Journal of Child Language, 35, 619 – 650. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000908008714</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Dahl, J. J., Kingo, O. S., & Krøjgaard, P. (2015). The magic shrinking machine revisited: The presence of props at recall facilitates memory in 3‐year‐olds. Developmental Psychology, 51, 1704 – 1716. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000050</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Ebbinghaus, H. (1885). Memory: A contribution to experimental psychology. Dover.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Fivush, R., Gray, J. T., & Fromhoff, F. A. (1987). Two‐year‐olds talk about the past. Cognitive Development, 2, 393 – 409. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0885‐2014(87)80015‐1</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Fritzley, V. H., Lindsay, R. C. L., & Lee, K. (2013). Young children's response tendencies toward yes‐no questions concerning actions. Child Development, 84, 711 – 725. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12006</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Hall, N. M., Gjedde, A., & Kupers, R. (2008). Neural mechanisms of voluntary and involuntary recall: A PET study. Behavioural Brain Research, 186, 261 – 272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2007.08.026</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Hall, N. M., Rubin, D. C., Miles, A., Davis, S. W., Wing, E. A., Cabeza, R., & Berntsen, D. (2014). The neural basis of involuntary episodic memories. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 26, 2385 – 2399. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_00633</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Hall, S. A., Brodar, K. E., LaBar, K. S., Berntsen, D., & Rubin, D. C. (2018). Neural responses to emotional involuntary memories in posttraumatic stress disorder: Differences in timing and activity. NeuroImage: Clinical, 19, 793 – 804. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2018.05.009</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Hamond, N. R., & Fivush, R. (1991). Memories of Mickey Mouse: Young children recount their trip to Disneyworld. Cognitive Development, 6, 433 – 448. https://doi.org/10.1016/0885‐2014(91)90048‐I</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Hayne, H., & Imuta, K. (2011). Episodic memory in 3‐ and 4‐year‐old children. Developmental Psychobiology, 53, 317 – 322. https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.20527</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Hayne, H., Scarf, D., & Imuta, K. (2015). Childhood Memories. In J. D. Wright (Ed.), International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences (2nd ed., pp. 465 – 470). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978‐0‐08‐097086‐8.51025‐3</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Hjuler, T. F., Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., Berntsen, D., & Krøjgaard, P. (2021). Real‐time assessment of looking time at central environmental cues for spontaneous recall in 35‐month‐olds. Cognitive Development, 57, 100995. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100995</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Howe, M. L., & O'Sullivan, J. T. (1997). What children's memories tell us about recalling our childhoods: A review of storage and retrieval processes in the development of long‐term retention. Developmental Review, 17, 148 – 204. https://doi.org/10.1006/drev.1996.0428</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Hudson, J. A., & Fivush, R. (1991). As time goes by: Sixth graders remember a kindergarten experience. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 5, 347 – 360. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.2350050405</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Johnson, M. H. (2005). Developmental cognitive neuroscience: An introduction, 2 nd ed. Blackwell Publishing.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Kobasigawa, A. (1974). Utilization of retrieval cues by children in recall. Child Development, 45, 127 – 134. https://doi.org/10.2307/1127758</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Krøjgaard, P., Kingo, O. S., Dahl, J. J., & Berntsen, D. (2014). "That one makes things small": Experimentally induced spontaneous memories in 3.5‐year‐olds. Consciousness and Cognition, 30, 24 – 35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2014.07.017</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Krøjgaard, P., Kingo, O. S., Jensen, T. S., & Berntsen, D. (2017). By‐passing strategic retrieval: Experimentally induced spontaneous episodic memories in 35‐ and 46‐month‐old children. Consciousness and Cognition, 55, 91 – 105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2017.08.001</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> La Rooy, D., Pipe, M.‐E., & Murray, J. E. (2007). Enhancing children's event recall after long delays. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 21, 1 – 17. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1272</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Levine, B., Svoboda, E., Hay, J. F., Winocur, G., & Moscovitch, M. (2002). Aging and autobiographical memory: Dissociating episodic from semantic retrieval. Psychology and Aging, 17, 677 – 689. https://doi.org/10.1037/0882‐7974.17.4.677</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Lewis, A., Call, J., & Berntsen, D. (2017). Non‐goal‐directed recall of specific events in apes after long delays. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 284 (1858), 20170518. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.0518</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Lukowski, A. F., & Bauer, P. J. (2014). Long‐term memory in infancy and early childhood. In P. J. Bauer, & R. Fivush (Eds.), The Wiley‐Blackwell handbook on the development of children's memory (pp. 230 – 254). Wiley‐Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118597705.ch11</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> MacDonald, S., & Hayne, H. (1996). Child‐initiated conversations about the past and memory performance by preschoolers. Cognitive Development, 11, 421 – 442. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0885‐2014(96)90012‐X</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Mahr, J., & Csibra, G. (2018). Why do we remember? The communicative function of episodic memory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 41, 1 – 93. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X17000012</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Nairne, J. S. (2002). The myth of the encoding‐retrieval match. Memory, 10, 389 – 395. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658210244000216</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Nelson, K., & Ross, G. (1980). The generalities and specifics of long‐term memory in infants and young children. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 1980, 87 – 101. https://doi.org/10.1002/cd.23219801008</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Peterson, C., Dowden, C., & Tobin, J. (1999). Interviewing preschoolers: comparisons of yes/no and wh‐questions. Law and Human Behavior, 23, 539 – 555. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022396112719</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. (1969). The psychology of the child. Basic books.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Pipe, M.‐E., Gee, S., & Wilson, C. (1993). Cues, props, and context: Do they facilitate children's event reports. In G. S. Goodman, & B. L. Bottoms (Eds.), Child victims, child witnesses: Understanding and improving testimony (pp. 25 – 45). The Guilford Press.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Pipe, M.‐E., & Salmon, K. (2009). Memory development and the forensic context. In M. L. Courage, & N. Cowan (Eds.), The development of memory in infancy and childhood, 2 nd ed. (pp. 241 – 282). Psychology Press.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Reese, E. (1999). What children say when they talk about the past. Narrative Inquiry, 9, 215 – 241. https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.9.2.02ree</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Rubin, D. C. (1995). Memory in oral traditions: The cognitive psychology of epic, ballads, and counting‐out rhymes. Oxford University Press.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Scarf, D., Gross, J., Colombo, M., & Hayne, H. (2013). To have and to hold: Episodic memory in 3‐ and 4‐year‐old children. Developmental Psychobiology, 55, 125 – 132. https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.21004</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Schlagman, S., & Kvavilashvili, L. (2008). Involuntary autobiographical memories in and outside the laboratory: How different are they from voluntary autobiographical memories? Memory & Cognition, 36, 920 – 932. https://doi.org/10.3758/mc.36.5.920</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Simcock, G., & Hayne, H. (2002). Breaking the barrier? Children fail to translate their preverbal memories into language. Psychological Science, 13, 225 – 231. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467‐9280.00442</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., Berntsen, D., & Krøjgaard, P. (2019). Thirty‐five‐month‐old children have spontaneous memories despite change of context for retrieval. Memory, 27, 38 – 48. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2017.1363243</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., Berntsen, D., & Krøjgaard, P. (2020). Age affects strategic but not spontaneous recall in 35‐ and 46‐month‐old children. Journal of Cognition and Development, 21, 603 – 621. https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2020.1797748</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., Berntsen, D., & Krøjgaard, P. (2021). Noting a difference: change in social context prompts spontaneous recall in 46‐month‐olds, but not in 35‐month‐olds. Psychological Research Psychologische Forschung, 85, 939 – 950. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426‐020‐01310‐7</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Staugaard, S. R., & Berntsen, D. (2014). Involuntary memories of emotional scenes: The effects of cue discriminability and emotion over time. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143, 1939 – 1957. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037185</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Suddendorf, T., Nielsen, M., & von Gehlen, R. (2011). Children's capacity to remember a novel problem and to secure its future solution. Developmental Science, 14, 26 – 33. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467‐7687.2010.00950.x</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Svane, R. P., Jensen, T. S., Hjuler, T. F., Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., & Krøjgaard, P. (2021). Episodic future thinking in 35‐, 47‐, and 55‐month‐old children. Nordic Psychology, 1 – 17. https://doi.org/10.1080/19012276.2021.1873829</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Todd, C. M., & Perlmutter, M. (1980). Reality recalled by preschool children. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 10, 69 – 85.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Tulving, E. (1983). Elements of episodic memory. Oxford University Press.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Tulving, E. (1985). Memory and consciousness. Canadian Psychology, 26, 1 – 12. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0080017</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Tulving, E. (2005). Episodic memory and autonoesis: Uniquely human? In H. S. Terrace, & J. Metcalfe (Eds.), The missing link in cognition: Origins of self‐reflective consciousness (pp. 3 – 56). Oxford University Press.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Watkins, O. C., & Watkins, M. J. (1975). Buildup of proactive inhibition as a cue‐overload effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 1 (4), 442 – 452.</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <aug> <p>By Toril S. Jensen; Dorthe Berntsen; Osman S. Kingo and Peter Krøjgaard</p> <p>Reported by Author; Author; Author; Author</p> </aug> <nolink nlid="nl1" bibid="bib67" firstref="ref19"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl2" bibid="bib51" firstref="ref20"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl3" bibid="bib50" firstref="ref21"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl4" bibid="bib64" firstref="ref26"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl5" bibid="bib53" firstref="ref27"></nolink>
Header DbId: eric
DbLabel: ERIC
An: EJ1341233
AccessLevel: 3
PubType: Academic Journal
PubTypeId: academicJournal
PreciseRelevancyScore: 0
IllustrationInfo
Items – Name: Title
  Label: Title
  Group: Ti
  Data: Distinct Environmental Cues Trigger Spontaneous Recall of Past Events in 3- and 4-Year-Old Children Even after Long Delays
– Name: Language
  Label: Language
  Group: Lang
  Data: English
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Jensen%2C+Toril+S%2E%22">Jensen, Toril S.</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Berntsen%2C+Dorthe%22">Berntsen, Dorthe</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Kingo%2C+Osman+S%2E%22">Kingo, Osman S.</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Krøjgaard%2C+Peter%22">Krøjgaard, Peter</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4976-0866">0000-0002-4976-0866</externalLink>)
– Name: TitleSource
  Label: Source
  Group: Src
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Child+Development%22"><i>Child Development</i></searchLink>. Jul-Aug 2022 93(4):941-955.
– Name: Avail
  Label: Availability
  Group: Avail
  Data: Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
– Name: PeerReviewed
  Label: Peer Reviewed
  Group: SrcInfo
  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 15
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2022
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Environmental+Influences%22">Environmental Influences</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Cues%22">Cues</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Recall+%28Psychology%29%22">Recall (Psychology)</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Early+Experience%22">Early Experience</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Long+Term+Memory%22">Long Term Memory</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Preschool+Children%22">Preschool Children</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Age+Differences%22">Age Differences</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1111/cdev.13735
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 0009-3920
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: Verbally reported long-term memory for past events typically improves with age. However, such findings are based exclusively on studies, where children are directly asked to recall. The present study showed that when 3- (n = 113, 59 girls) and 4-year-olds (n = 113, 62 girls), predominantly White, were brought back to a distinct laboratory-setting after either 1-, 4.5-, or 13-weeks, children--regardless of age and delay--spontaneously recalled the distinct event experienced at their first visit (all Cohen's ds > 1.00). Meanwhile, the oldest children outperformed the youngest when being asked directly to retrieve the event (n[subscript p][superscript 2]>0.088). These findings suggest that spontaneous retrieval facilitated by distinct environmental cues provides a short-cut to young children's event memories.
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
  Group: Ab
  Data: As Provided
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2022
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1341233
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1341233
RecordInfo BibRecord:
  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1111/cdev.13735
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 15
        StartPage: 941
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Environmental Influences
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Cues
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Recall (Psychology)
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Early Experience
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Long Term Memory
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Preschool Children
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Age Differences
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: Distinct Environmental Cues Trigger Spontaneous Recall of Past Events in 3- and 4-Year-Old Children Even after Long Delays
        Type: main
  BibRelationships:
    HasContributorRelationships:
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Jensen, Toril S.
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Berntsen, Dorthe
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Kingo, Osman S.
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Krøjgaard, Peter
    IsPartOfRelationships:
      – BibEntity:
          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 01
              Type: published
              Y: 2022
          Identifiers:
            – Type: issn-print
              Value: 0009-3920
          Numbering:
            – Type: volume
              Value: 93
            – Type: issue
              Value: 4
          Titles:
            – TitleFull: Child Development
              Type: main
ResultId 1