One developmental task faced by children is to identify, remember, and learn from epistemic and moral agents around them who are known to be good or virtuous. Here, in 2 studies, we examined U.S children's (N = 138; 55% female, 45% male; predominantly White, middle-class) memory processes for agents varying in moral and epistemic virtue. In Study…

Guided by evolutionary-developmental models, this study tested the hypothesis that children's exposure to parental relationship instability, defined by initiation and dissolution of caregiver intimate relationships, has both costs in cognitive impairments and benefits in enhanced learning skills. Participants included 243 mothers and their…

In any learning situation, children must decide the level of generality with which to encode information. Cues to generality may affect children's memory for different components of a learning episode. In this research, we investigated whether 1 cue to generality, generic language, affects children's memory for information about social categories…

The present study aimed at modeling individual differences in a verbal learning task by means of a latent structured growth curve approach based on an exponential function that yielded 3 parameters: initial recall, learning rate, and asymptotic performance. Three cognitive variables--speed of information processing, verbal knowledge, working…

Learning-related behaviors are important for school success. Socioeconomic disadvantage confers risk for less adaptive learning-related behaviors at school entry, yet substantial variability in school readiness exists within socioeconomically disadvantaged populations. Investigation of neurophysiological systems associated with learning-related…

Reviews the literature on the relation between early memory development and corresponding changes in brain development of infants. Finds that an adult-like form of explicit memory emerges between 8 and 12 months of age, drawing heavily on limbic and cortical structures. Offers theoretical perspectives for studying the ontogeny of memory. (JW)

Digit span and latency from P300 component of event-related brain potential--a measure of stimulus evaluation time--were obtained from children and adults. Increases in digit span were associated with decreases in peak latency for children but not adults, suggesting that immediate memory development is tightly coupled with decreases in speed of…

Investigated effects of object reinstatement on event recall by 6- and 9-year olds'. Subjects were interviewed either 10 days and again 10 weeks after an event, or only 10 weeks after an event. Interviewing included free recall, prompts, and questions. Found that age, delay, and object reinstatement all affected amount and accuracy of recall. (JW)

Examined age- and schooling-related influences on memory and phonological segmentation skills of 19 children who missed and made the school-entry cutoff date in a given year. Tested recall ability, short term memory strategies, and phonological awareness. Found that growth of memory skills and strategies, particularly short term, is primarily a…

Investigates the developmental differences in spatial exploration and memory, depending on the purposes for which children six- to seven- and eight- to nine-years-old explored the space. The results suggest that children's knowledge of large-scale space is tailored to the purpose of acquiring such information. (Author/BB)

The development of the ability to use taxonomic, phonemic and sense impression categories as dimensions of encoding was investigated using third and fifth graders and college students. (ED)

Examined the relation between developmental suggestibility effects and preschoolers' emerging ability to reason about conflicting mental representations. Subjects were 42 three- to five-year-olds. Found in the children significant initial encoding and ability to retrieve event details. Also found an integration between children's theory of mind…

Noun pairs were learned by younger and older adults. Anticipation and presentation intervals were manipulated, and there were no-imagery, experimenter-provided imagery, and self-generated imagery instructions. Older subjects generated and used imagery with the same facility as younger subjects, although retrieval time was longer. (GO)

Examines interrelations among measures of memory in order to determine whether individual differences in 8- to 11-year-old children's performance on learning and memory tasks may be attributable to a general strategic factor. (CM)