How to bet on a memory: Developmental linkages between subjective recollection and decision making

Disagreement reduces overconfidence and prompts exploration in young children

Can the experience of disagreement lead young children to reason in more sophisticated ways? Across two preregistered studies, four- to six-year-old US children (N = 136, 50% female, mixed ethnicities, data collected 2020-2022) experienced either a disagreement or an agreement with a confederate about a causal mechanism after being presented with ambiguous evidence. We measured (1) children's confidence in their belief before and after the (dis)agreement, and (2) how long children searched for information about the correct answer. Disagreement, especially with an expert (Experiment 2), reduced overconfidence and prompted children to search longer for information, compared to agreement. Together, our findings suggest possibilities for interventions aimed at fostering humility and learning across the lifespan.

Seeking versus receiving help: How children integrate suggestions in memory decisions

The current research examined how seeking versus receiving help affected children's memory and confidence decisions. Baseline performance, when no help was available, was compared to performance when help could be sought (Experiment 1: N = 83, 41 females) or was provided (Experiment 2: N = 84, 44 females) in a sample of predominately White 5-, 7-, and 9-year-olds from Northern California. Data collection occurred from 2018 to 2019. In Experiment 1, 5-year-olds agreed most often with sought-help, whereas 9-year-olds were the only age group reporting lower confidence for sought-help relative to baseline trials. In Experiment 2, agreement and confidence after provided help were similar across age groups. Different developmental patterns when help was sought versus provided underscore the importance of active help-seeking for memory decision-making.

Active help-seeking and metacognition interact in supporting children's retention of science facts

Determining when to ask for help is a critical self-regulated strategy that can benefit children's learning. Despite its importance, we have a limited understanding about the developmental mechanisms that support adaptive help-seeking. In the current preregistered study, predominately White children aged 8 to 13 years (N = 69, ngirls = 37) had the option to seek help during an online science learning task. Results revealed that children's ability to adaptively seek help improved throughout childhood and early adolescence. Critically, developing metacognitive skills contributed to greater help-related memory benefits (compared with conditions where help was not previously available). Overall, these findings highlight the role of metacognition in children's ability to adaptively seek and benefit from help during online science learning.

I know better! Emerging metacognition allows adolescents to ignore false advice

Adolescents aspire for independence. Successful independence means knowing when to rely on one's own knowledge and when to listen to others. A critical prerequisite thus is a well-developed metacognitive ability to accurately assess the quality of one's own knowledge. Little is known about whether the strive to become an independent decision maker in adolescence is underpinned by the necessary metacognitive skills. Here, we demonstrate that metacognition matures from childhood to adolescence (N = 107) and that this process coincides with greater independent decision-making. We show that adolescents, in contrast to children, take on others' advice less often, but only when the advice is misleading. Finally, we demonstrate that adolescents' reduced reliance on others' advice is explained by their increased metacognitive skills, suggesting that a developing ability to introspect may support independent decision-making in adolescence.

This is not what I expected: The impact of prior expectations on children's and adults' preferences and emotions

We examined the influence of prior expectations on 4- to 10-year-olds' and adults' preferences and emotions following an undesirable outcome (N = 205; 49% female, 51% male; 6% Asian, 1% Black, 13% Hispanic/Latino [non-White], 57% White, 18% multiracial, and 5% another race/ethnicity; 75% with a college-educated parent). Participants attempted to win a chance game with multiple prizes; the worst prize being a pencil. The game was rigged so that half of the participants lost, and the other half won. Regardless of the game outcome, everyone received a pencil. For winning participants (high-expectation condition), the pencil was worse than the prize they expected; whereas for losing participants (low-expectation condition), the pencil was better than the "nothing" they expected. Participants rated how much they liked and felt about the pencil preoutcome, postoutcome, when imagining having held an alternative prior expectation, and after learning that everyone received a pencil. Results showed that 6- to 10-year-olds and adults with low (vs. high) expectations liked the pencil more, with emotion ratings trending in the same direction. Prior expectations did not influence younger children's affective experiences. More participants with low (vs. high) expectations also expressed a positive outlook about the pencil, which increased with age and correlated with higher postoutcome emotions. More adults than children explained emotions as caused by thoughts, and only adults consistently reasoned that their preferences and emotions would have differed had they held alternative prior expectations. Once knowing that everyone received a pencil, 6- to 10-year-olds and adults liked the pencil more and felt better. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Developmental Differences in Subjective Recollection and Its Role in Decision Making

We examined how subjective assessments of recollection guide decision making. Subjective recollection was dissociated from accuracy during a forced-choice recognition task. Distracters were either similar to targets (match condition) or to other studied, but untested items (nonmatch condition). We assessed 223 participants (112 males) across three experiments (137 White, 37 Asian-American, 7 African-American, 4 American-Indian, 32 mixed race, 6 undisclosed). In Experiment 1, 6- to 10-year-olds and adults (N = 119) were less accurate (d = 0.70), but more likely to claim subjective recollection and make memory selections in anticipation of a reward in the nonmatch condition (ds = 0.64-0.70). This pattern was eliminated in 6- to 7-year-olds when we limited the number of selections (Experiment 2, N = 52), but was replicated when we required the selections to be counted (Experiment 3, N = 52), underscoring the effects of decision complexity on children's self-reflections.

"I can't skip it": does free report improve accuracy in false memories?

Strategic monitoring of recognition memory by children and adults was examined using a semantic DRM procedure. Children (7- and 10-year-olds) and adults (overall N = 393) studied lists of semantically related words either incidentally or intentionally and were tested with old items, new items and critical lures to judge as old or new. Participants either made a decision about every item they saw (forced report), or they had the opportunity to withhold answers they were uncertain about (free report). Children were less likely to withhold an answer than adults. However, 7-year-olds were more able to resist false memories when given the opportunity to withhold an answer compared to 10-year-olds or adults. In contrast, adults were unable to improve false memory accuracy. These data suggest that once semantically induced false memories have been encoded they are amenable to strategic monitoring at retrieval in children but not adults.

Neural Development of Memory and Metamemory in Childhood and Adolescence: Toward an Integrative Model of the Development of Episodic Recollection

Memory and metamemory processes are essential to retrieve detailed memories and appreciate the phenomenological experience of recollection. Developmental cognitive neuroscience has made strides in revealing the neural changes associated with improvements in memory and metamemory during childhood and adolescence. We argue that hippocampal changes, in concert with surrounding cortical regions, support developmental improvements in the precision, complexity, and flexibility of memory representations. In contrast, changes in frontoparietal regions promote efficient encoding and retrieval strategies. A smaller body of literature on the neural substrates of metamemory development suggests that error monitoring processes implemented in the anterior insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex trigger, and perhaps support the development of, metacognitive evaluationsin the prefrontal cortex, while developmental changes in the parietal cortex support changes in the phenomenological experience of episodic retrieval. Our conclusions highlight the necessity of integrating these lines of research into a comprehensive model on the neurocognitive development of episodic recollection.

Development of Children's monitoring and control when learning from texts: effects of age and test format

This study investigated elementary school children's development of monitoring and control when learning from texts. Second (N = 138) and fourth (N = 164) graders were tested in the middle (T₁) and end (T₂) of the school year. The study focused on the cross-sectional and longitudinal development of monitoring and control, and aimed to investigate the development of metacognition for two test formats. After reading expository texts, children completed a comprehension test consisting of open-ended and true-false questions. They monitored their test performance by making confidence judgments, and controlled performance by deciding whether to maintain or withdraw their given answers. Overall, monitoring and control accuracy was higher for open-ended questions than for true-false questions. For open-ended questions, results indicated higher metacognitive accuracy for fourth graders than second graders. No such age effects were found for monitoring and control for true-false questions. Longitudinally, children of both age groups improved their monitoring and control accuracy from T₁ to T₂, for open-ended and true-false questions. For both test types, improvement mainly occurred for the monitoring and controlling of incorrect, rather than correct answers. Additionally, the results indicated inter-individual stability of performance, but no stability of monitoring and control accuracy over time. The findings indicate that developmental as well as task-related factors affect children's metacognitive accuracy.

Here is a hint! How children integrate reliable recommendations in their memory decisions

Children's own memory is not the only reliable source of information about past events. Others may possess relevant knowledge, and children must learn to appropriately consider it in combination with their own memories. In the current study, we investigated 5-, 7-, and 9-year-olds' (N = 72) ability to incorporate probabilistically reliable (70% accurate) hints into their memory decisions. Results revealed that children across ages were appropriately sensitive to these cues without following them blindly and indiscriminately. Furthermore, individual differences in metamemory monitoring predicted overall accuracy improvements after receiving cues in 9-year-olds but not in 5- and 7-year-olds, revealing a developmental role of metamemory for discerning when cues are most informative or needed. Although 5-year-olds increased overall confidence in their memory after receiving invalid cues, they still preserved the capacity to monitor their memory in the face of inaccurate information. Overall, children were sensitive to reliable recommendations, but developing metacognitive mechanisms predicted judicious benefits from cues.

A (Preliminary) Recipe for Obtaining a Testing Effect in Preschool Children: Two Critical Ingredients

The testing effect refers to the finding that retrieval of previously learned information improves retention of that information more than restudy practice does. While there is some evidence that the testing effect can already arise in preschool children when a particular experimental task is employed, it remains unclear whether, for this age group, the effect exists across a wider range of tasks. To examine the issue, the present experiments sought to determine the potential roles of retrieval-practice and final-test formats, and of immediate feedback during retrieval practice for the testing effect in preschoolers. Experiments 1 and 2 showed no testing effect in preschoolers when a free-recall task was applied during the final test, regardless of whether free recall (Experiment 1) or cued recall (Experiment 2) were conducted during retrieval practice. In contrast, if cued-recall tasks were used during both retrieval practice and the final test (Experiment 3), a reliable testing effect arose. Furthermore, the magnitude of the effect was dramatically enhanced when, in addition, immediate feedback was provided during retrieval practice (Experiment 4). The present findings suggest that cued-recall practice and test formats, as well as immediate feedback during practice, are crucial ingredients for obtaining the testing effect in preschoolers.

Age-related differences in subjective recollection: ERP studies of encoding and retrieval

The ability to mentally re-experience past events improves significantly from childhood to young adulthood; however, the mechanisms underlying this ability remain poorly understood, partially because different tasks are used across the lifespan. This study was designed to address this gap by assessing the development of event-related potential (ERP) correlates associated with subjective indices of recollection. Children, adolescents, and adults performed Tulving's () remember/know paradigm while ERPs were recorded during memory encoding (Experiment 1) and retrieval (Experiment 2). Behaviorally, children recognized fewer items than adolescents and adults. All age groups reliably made subjective judgments of recollection, although the ability to make these judgments improved with age. At encoding, the ERP effect associated with recollection was present and comparable across age groups. In contrast, the ERP effect associated with recollection at retrieval differed as a function of age group; specifically, this effect was absent in children, topographically widespread in adolescents, and, consistent with previous literature, maximal over left centro-parietal leads in adults. These findings suggest that encoding processes associated with the subsequent subjective experience of recollection may be similar among children, adolescents, and adults and that age-related improvement in recollection may be primarily attributable to the development of processes that follow the initial encoding of stimuli (i.e., consolidation, storage, retrieval).

Subjective experience guides betting decisions beyond accuracy: evidence from a metamemory illusion

The goal of this research was to test whether subjective memory experiences drive accuracy regulation decisions above and beyond objective memory indices. In four experiments (n = 115) subjective recollection (i.e., reporting "Remember" in the Remember-Know task) was dissociated from memory accuracy by manipulating retrieval during a two-alternative forced-choice recognition task: in the Match condition the distracter was a novel exemplar of the target (e.g., a studied and an unstudied toaster) and in the Non-match condition the distracter was a novel exemplar of another studied but untested item (e.g., a studied toaster and an unstudied birdhouse). Participants were more accurate on Match trials, but reported subjective recollection more frequently on Non-match trials. Critically, participants also bet more often on Non-match trials to the detriment of their score (Experiment 1). This pattern persisted when participants were additionally required to retrieve details about items (Experiment 2) and when confidence assessments were collected (Experiment 3). Finally, participants bet more on Non-match trials even when subjective judgments were not elicited, suggesting that the decision process does not require reporting on subjective experience (Experiment 4). These results indicate that subjective memory experiences guide decision-making independent of objective accuracy and thus are critical to accuracy regulation.

Setting the Records Straight: Impossible Memories and the Persistence of Their Phenomenological Qualities

This article offers a new perspective on the study of “recollections” that feel like memories despite the fact that people come to believe they are based on events that could not possibly have happened. Indeed this feeling of remembering can persist long after people change their beliefs. This new perspective emerges from the integration of the work of memory scientists with that of literary writers and historians. Shedding light on assumptions about the strength of these persistence effects, the perspective serves as an effective heuristic for guiding the study of precipitating factors that may lead people to question their recollections in the first place. This integrative perspective also invites a broader consideration of the circumstances giving rise to changes in beliefs as well as resistance to such changes. In the process, this new perspective extends and sharpens theoretical discussions about memory reconstruction processes, highlighting the role of scene making and social interactions.

Developmental changes and the effect of self-generated feedback in metacognitive controlled spacing strategies in 7-year-olds, 10-year-olds, and adults

The current study investigated the development of metacognitive monitoring-based control of spacing choices in children and adults. Moreover, we assessed whether metacognitive learning decisions are influenced by the effects of previous metacognitive decisions. We tested groups of 7-year-olds, 10-year-olds, and adults in a task with two learning blocks in which they needed to monitor their learning through judgments of learning (JoL) and in which they then needed to decide whether to space their study, mass it, or terminate it. Extending previous findings, our study provides the first evidence that already by 7 years of age children can make metacognitive controlled scheduling decisions. The results also revealed that adults had more clearly differentiated strategies related to their JoL. Furthermore, our study provides evidence that participants of all age groups improved their relative monitoring accuracy in the second learning block and adjusted their JoL. However, only adults changed their strategy choices.

Process dissociation of familiarity and recollection in children: response deadline affects recollection but not familiarity

According to dual-process theories, recollection (slow and associated with contextual details) and familiarity (fast and automatic) are two independent processes underlying recognition memory. An adapted version of the process dissociation paradigm was used to measure recognition memory in 5-, 7-, and 11-year-olds and adults. In Experiment 1, it was found that 5-year-olds already recollect details of items (i.e., number). Recollection increased particularly between 5 and 7 years. Familiarity differed between 5 years and adulthood. In Experiment 2, under limited response time during retrieval, recollection was eliminated in 5-year-olds and reduced across all ages, whereas familiarity was left unaffected. Together, these findings are consistent with dual-process theories of recognition memory and provide support for two processes underlying recognition memory from a developmental perspective.

Don’t Look at My Answer

Preschoolers’ ability to introspect and make decisions on the basis of these introspections has traditionally been questioned. The present research introduces a novel paradigm to examine the development of the connection between subjective uncertainty about memory and decision making in preschoolers. Three-, 4-, and 5-year-olds ( N = 81) encoded items presented once or twice. They then completed a forced-choice test, provided confidence judgments for each response, and decided whether to select or exclude answers to be evaluated for the possibility of reward. Four- and 5-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, reported lower certainty for incorrect and weaker memories than for correct and stronger memories, and they judiciously excluded their least confident memories, which resulted in accuracy gains for selected memories; these findings highlight age-related improvements in introspection on memory accuracy. Among accurate responses only, even 3-year-olds excluded their least confident answers, which suggests that the connection between uncertainty and decision making precedes the ability to monitor memory accuracy.