Visiting the Wizard: Children's Memory for a Recurring Event

Setting boundaries: Development of neural and behavioral event cognition in early childhood

The ongoing stream of sensory experience is so complex and ever-changing that we tend to parse this experience at "event boundaries," which structures and strengthens memory. Memory processes undergo profound change across early childhood. Whether young children also divide their ongoing processing along event boundaries, and if those boundaries relate to memory, could provide important insight into the development of memory systems. In Study 1, 4-7-year-old children and adults segmented a cartoon, and we tested their memory. Children's event boundaries were more variable than adults' and differed in location and consistency of agreement. Older children's event segmentation was more adult-like than younger children's, and children who segmented events more like adults had better memory for those events. In Study 2, we asked whether these developmental differences in event segmentation had their roots in distinct neural representations. A separate group of 4-8-year-old children watched the same cartoon while undergoing an fMRI scan. In the right hippocampus, greater pattern dissimilarity across event boundaries compared to within events was evident for both child and adult behavioral boundaries, suggesting children and adults share similar event cognition. However, the boundaries identified by a data-driven Hidden Markov Model found that a different brain region-the left and right angular gyrus-aligned only with event boundaries defined by children. Overall, these data suggest that children's event cognition is reasonably well-developed by age 4 but continues to become more adult-like across early childhood. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Adults naturally break their experience into events, which structures and strengthens memory, but less is known about children's event perception and memory. Study 1 had adults and children segment and remember events from an animated show, and Study 2 compared those segmentations to other children's fMRI data. Children show better recognition and temporal order memory and more adult-like event segmentation with age, and children who segment more like adults have better memory. Children's and adults' behavioral boundaries mapped onto pattern similarity differences in hippocampus, and children's behavioral boundaries matched a data-driven model's boundaries in angular gyrus.

Kindergarten children's event memory: the role of action prediction in remembering

In two studies, kindergarteners participated in a series of staged events immediately preceded by pre-event interactions that were designed to identify factors relevant to improving recall. The events were based on preschool science-related activities and the experimental pre-event involved predicting actions to occur during a target event, manipulating types of cues available to support these predictive inferences. Action prediction did improve free recall, and effects may have influenced attentional processes evoked by actions generated and enacted. Although children effectively used outcome cues to predict actions, a one-to-one relation between pre-event action prediction patterns and recall did not occur. In combination with other findings, this result may suggest that increased attention during the target event may have supported the pre-event effect rather than integration of information between the pre-event and target event. Early childhood teachers engaging children in science activities should provide explicit cues to enhance usefulness of preparatory activities for recall.