Knowing in advance: the impact of prior event information on memory and event knowledge

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.

Pain is not over when the needle ends: a review and preliminary model of acute pain memory development in childhood

SUMMARY Over the past several decades, the field of pediatric pain has made impressive advances in our understanding of the pain experience of the developing child, as well as the devastating impact of inadequately managed pain early in life. It is now well recognized that, from infancy, children are capable of developing implicit memories of pain that can influence their subsequent reactions to pain. The present review provides a synthesis of selected studies that made a significant impact on this field of inquiry, with particular emphasis on recent clinical and laboratory-based experimental research examining children’s explicit autobiographical memories for acute pain. Research has begun to move towards improving the precision with which children at risk for developing negatively estimated pain memories can be identified, given the adverse influence these memories can have on subsequent pain experiences. As such, several fear- and anxiety-related child and parent variables implicated in this process are discussed, and avenues for future research and clinical intervention are identified throughout. Finally, a preliminary empirically and theoretically derived model of acute pain memory development in childhood is presented to parsimoniously summarize the evidence accumulated to date and guide future investigation in this area.

The susceptibility of young preschoolers to source similarity effects: confusing story or video events with reality

This study examined children's tendency to confuse events that varied in source similarity, which was manipulated using different media of event presentation. In Experiment 1, children in two age groups (3- and 4-year-olds and 5- and 6-year-olds) experienced a live presentation of an event, and another event was either heard from a story (low similarity group) or seen on a video (high similarity group). Immediately afterward, the children were asked to monitor the source of the events. The children in the low similarity group produced higher source discrimination scores than did the children in the high similarity group. Overall, the older children were better at source monitoring than were the younger children. In Experiment 2, the procedure was replicated except that the children's source monitoring was tested after a 4-day delay. When attributing the source of the story or video events, both 3- and 4-year-olds and 5- and 6-year-olds in the low similarity group produced more accurate story or video attributions than did their age mates in the high similarity group. However, when attributing the source of the live events, only the 3- and 4-year-olds evidenced this effect of source similarity. The 5- and 6-year-olds in both the low and high similarity groups performed at ceiling levels for live discriminations.

Behavioral approaches to anxiety and pain management for pediatric venous access

Pediatric venous access causes unnecessary anxiety and pain in children and, in turn, can have detrimental consequences. Behavioral approaches to pediatric venous access distress management can be organized temporally. Specifically, preparation before the procedure includes providing children with sensory and procedural information in an age-appropriate manner and providing training in coping skills. It is important to consider the timing, format, and content of the approach to provide optimal preparation for the unique circumstances of the individual patient. In addition to the child patient, preparing parents and teaching them which specific behaviors might be most helpful to their child should prove valuable to both patient and parents. During the procedure, there are benefits to providing secure and comfortable positioning. In addition, researchers recommend that adults encourage children to cope and actively engage children in distracting activities. For infants, there is support for the distress-mitigation properties of swaddling, skin-to-skin contact, breastfeeding, and sucrose. After venous access, distraction and encouragement of coping should speed recovery. In sum, research in behavioral approaches to pediatric pain management has provided recommendations for minimizing children's anxiety and pain associated with venous access.

Does providing props during preparation help children to remember a novel event?

We investigated the conditions under which preparatory information presented 1 day before a novel event influenced 6-year-olds' recall 1 week later. Children were assigned to one of six experimental conditions. Three conditions involved preparatory information that described the event accurately but differed according to the presence and type of props (verbal, real props, and toy props). In two conditions, which also differed according to whether verbal information was supplemented with real props, half of the preparatory information described the event accurately, whereas the other half was thematically similar to, but inconsistent with, the event (misleading verbal and misleading props). Compared with the attentional control condition, all forms of preparation that described the event accurately increased correct recall. Preparation that included props improved photograph recognition. When half of the accurate information was replaced by misleading information, the positive benefit on recall was reduced, and when misleading props accompanied the misleading information, errors increased. The potential underlying mechanisms and implications for pediatric settings are discussed.

The effects of prior knowledge on children’s memory and suggestibility

In this study, 5- and 6-year-olds were read a story and asked to recall its details. Two independent factors-prestory knowledge and poststory suggestions-were crossed to examine the effects on children's story recall. The results indicated that prestory social knowledge about the story protagonist as well as academic knowledge relating to the content of the story influenced the accuracy of children's recall immediately after the story presentation. Following the suggestive interview, children reported interviewer-provided social and academic misinformation to a greater extent when the misinformation was consistent with their prior knowledge. In contrast, children were more likely to refute misinformation that contradicted their academic knowledge. These findings are discussed in terms of the mechanisms underlying the knowledge-memory and knowledge-suggestibility linkages.

Pre-event discussion and recall of a novel event: How are children best prepared?

We investigated the conditions under which information 1 day before a novel event influenced 6-year-olds' recall 2 weeks later. In Experiment 1A, four preparation conditions included either the event goals, goals with narration of the event actions and objects, photographs of the objects with goals and narration, or photographs with narration and child verbalization of the actions and objects. Compared with an irrelevant preparation control condition, goals with narration reduced errors, but correct recall was increased only when photographs were included. Child verbalization together with goals, narration, and photographs increased correct recall relative to goals with narration. In Experiment 1B, neither photographs nor preparation alone improved recall relative to the control condition. Experiment 2 found no further advantage of increasing children's participation in the preparation via questions. Overall, the impact of preevent information on memory is influenced by the nature of the information and the child's participation in the preparation.

The Time to Talk: The Influence of the Timing of Adult-Child Talk on Children's Event Memory

To investigate the influence of the nature and timing of adult-child talk on event recall, this study engaged 63 three-year-olds and 65 five-year-olds in a staged event and interviewed them 2 weeks later. Children were assigned to 1 of 4 conditions: elaborative pre-, during-, and post-talk, and empty talk (during the event). Children in the elaborative, relative to the empty, talk conditions made fewer errors. Furthermore, post-talk had the greatest influence on correct recall, although for the 5-year-olds, during-talk was also facilitative. Recall was enhanced to a greater extent by the child's contribution to the talk, relative to that of the adult. The findings contribute to an understanding of the mechanisms by which adult-child conversations influence recall.