Distinct environmental cues trigger spontaneous recall of past events in 3- and 4-year-old children even after long delays

Direct retrieval as a theory of involuntary autobiographical memories: evaluation and future directions

I evaluate the conception of direct retrieval as originally formulated in the Self-Memory System model (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce [2000]. The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system. Psychological Review, 107(2), 261-288. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.107.2.261). In the hierarchical memory organisation proposed in the Self-Memory System model, direct retrieval is described as a bottom-up associative process. While its theoretical role within this model is clear, systematic empirical examination of direct retrieval, viewed as a natural and observable phenomenon, has been hampered by inconsistent operationalisations. Here, I suggest that direct retrieval should be treated as a theoretical concept, aiming at explaining the phenomenon of involuntary (spontaneously arising) autobiographical memories. I evaluate predictions derived from the concept of direct retrieval against findings on involuntary autobiographical memories obtained over the past 25 years. Most of these predictions are consistent with the evidence, notably, the enhanced episodic specificity and constructive nature of involuntary autobiographical memories. However, the theory also has critical limitations. It did not predict the frequent occurrence of involuntary recollections in daily life, exceeding the prevalence of voluntary memories. Additionally, it overlooked the early emergence of spontaneously arising event memories in ontogenesis and their presence in other species, such as great apes. Future advancements of the Self-Memory System model should integrate evolutionary perspectives to address these limitations.

To ask or not to ask: strategic recall, but not spontaneous recall, decreases by the passage of time in 46-month-olds' memory of a unique event

Children's ability to intentionally recall events lessens with temporal distance to the occurrence. However, little is known about the effects of retention time on memories that emerge spontaneously. We examined spontaneous and strategic retrieval in eighty-one 46-month-olds' memory of a lab event after 1 week (the 1-week Condition) versus 43 weeks (the 43-week Condition) in a between-subjects design, using well-established procedures (Krøjgaard et al., in Consciousness and Cognition 55(91): 105, 2017). While spontaneous recall showed no significant effect of retention, the children's strategic recall was negatively affected: even though the children overall still remembered the event, the children in the 43-week Condition showed reduced voluntary recall compared to the children in the 1-week Condition. To our knowledge, this is the first study to assess spontaneous recall after such a long retention interval. The findings add to existing evidence of two modes of retrieval in early childhood and are of both theoretical and forensic relevance.