Memory, Attention and Executive Function
28 important questions on Memory, Attention and Executive Function
What were 2 of Piaget's most influential findings?
---> children below 8 months do not search for a hidden object i.e. they think when they can't see the object, it doesn't exist
2. The 'A not B error'
---> infants (10 months and under) believe that they make the object appear by searching for it
---> however, looking times show that much younger infants can keep track of where hidden objects are
What were the theories of (1) Piaget and (2) Pillemer & White, 1989 regarding infants forming memory? What has recent research showed?
Pillemer & White, 1989 - "infantile amnesia" - most adults have few memories below age 3
HOWEVER, recent research has demonstrated that infants have similar kinds of memory abilities to adults - this suggests that the major developmental changes are quantitive
What is an explanation of infantile amnesia?
There are crucial differences between the way infants and older children encode information:
1. Young infants have a very limited vocabulary
---> changes in encoding the world could mean that it is difficult for older children/adults to access memories which were formed before these changes in encoding. - p. 310 developmental textbook
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What are the functions of the frontal lobes, prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, cerebellum and cerebral cortex?
Prefrontal cortex, parts of temporal lobes - efficient encoding of words, pictures
Hippocampus - formation of long-term declarative memories; may 'bond together' diverse elements of a memory so it can be retrieved later
Cerebellum - formation and retention of simple classically conditioned responses
Cerebral cortex - storage of long-term memories, possible in areas involved in original perception of the info
What are the 3 processes involved in remembering?
2. Storage - maintaining a record over time
3. Retrieval - accessing the record when it is needed
---> A memory failure could occur at any of these 3 points
What is the problem with most studies regarding memory failure?
Who measured properties of infant memory? What was their experiment?
Tested whether infants could remember that kicking makes a mobile move
Task: 3 month olds, tested with a trained (the one where the infants learnt that kicking makes the mobile move) vs. a new mobile
Results:
- 3 month olds remember after a 2 week delay
- given the same number of training session, max length of retention increases linearly with age (at older ages, the task in which an infant learnt that pressing a lever makes a toy train move)
- having more training sessions can extend the retention interval even at a younger age
What did Meltzoff, Bauer study? How is this similar to the findings of Rovee-Collier?
Results: preverbal infants recall action sequences many months later (explicit memory)Importance of "post encoding" process i.e. consolidation
Similar to Rovee-Collier mobile kicking study:
- older age = longer recall
- more repetitions = longer recall
Can infants form episodic memory?
2-3 year olds remember specific events over long periods - studied by asking children to recall events that happened to them e.g. trip to Disneyland, birth of a sibling (Fivush et al, 1987; Hamond & Fivush, 1991; Sheingold & Tenney, 1979)
What are the differences between infant vs. older episodic memory? (i.e. why do we have so few memories under 7 years old?)
Task: studied 7-10 year olds autobiographical memories using cue words (e.g. ice cream) to recall events
Results: forgetting curve (from graph) differs from that usually found in adults
In adults = power function ---> over time, forgetting slows, presumably as a result of consolidation
In children = exponential function ---> forgetting continues at a constant rate
Conclusion - lack of early memories not because they were not laid down, but because more likely to be forgotten - more forgetting perhaps because of development and change and reorganisation in memory networks in brain
Who estimated the duration of the working memory (STM)?
Hide a stimuli from infants, and measure the interval before it is correctly found
Results - STM in infants develops with age
Conclusions:
- duration of working memory relates to the development of the prefrontal cortex
- related to performance of the "A not B" task (Piaget) = similar mechanism in both
What is the digit span for college students, 12 year olds, and 5 year olds? What does this indicate? Why is this?
12 year olds = 6-7
5 year olds = 4 (Starr, 1923; Brener, 1940)
Shows the development of the STM in childhood
Why is this?
1. Changes in STM capacity
2. Items of interest are remembered better
3. Development of chunking strategies
4. Development of rehearsal strategies
What can be summarised about memory in infants?
But major quantitative changes in memory capabilities
- interval over which item can be held in STM (2secs at 7 months ---> 10 secs at 12 months)
- interval over which an action is remembered in LTM (2 weeks at 6 months ---> 13 weeks at 18 months)
- changes in rate of forgetting for autobiographical memories
Also, development of memory strategies on which adults rely e.g. if you know you have to remember something i.e. a route home etc
What are the major brain changes which influence the development of memory?
- Significant development of the hippocampus age 4-5 years - hippocampus continues to increase into adolescence
- Major prefrontal cortex development, including synaptic growth & synaptic pruning
What experiment shows that there are direct correlations between brain activity and memory abilities in development?
EEG differences in 7-12 month old infants who can vs. those who cannot solve the A not B task after a long (13 sec delay)
Results: individual differences in brain activity (related to maturation of prefrontal cortex) explain some of the individual diffs in A not B performance
= useful study as it examines individual diffs
What is meant by executive function?
What are 2 experiments which demonstrate executive function in infants?
2. 'A not B' task (Piaget) - includes elements of working memory and inhibition
What part of the brain is crucial in executive function?
- damage = problems with planing, inhibition & cognitive control
e.g Phineas Gage
What is Exogenously-driven orienting?
- this system greatly improves in precision - including major improvements in control of eye movements
What experiments shows the developing of attention with regards to basic orienting?
Found that newborns and young infants move their eyes and head towards visual and auditory targets (based on sub cortical mechanisms)
What experiment shows when infants are able to disengage their attention?
Infants can disengage from one target and fixate on another from 3-4 months
Development from simple sub-cortical control to a more flexible, cortical control
What is meant by the working memory?
Described as an aspect of executive function, but it is also described as an aspect of memory
What experiment shows the development of executive function regarding working memory?
Increasing retention interval for spatial location - proposed to relate to development of prefrontal cortex
What experiment shows the development of executive function regarding cognitive flexibility?
Task: sort the same cards into 2 different ways e.g. first by shape then by colour
Results - typically developing children can switch from shape to colour by 4 years, younger children have difficulty switching
---> impaired in children with ADHD and autism
What evidence shows that there is direct evidence that developmental changes in PFC function accompany changes in executive function?
Task - children do card sorting task while brain activity is recorded via NIRS
Result in behavioural measure - nearly all age 5 year olds but only 75% of 3 year olds successfully switch rules
Result in brain measure - change is blood oxygenation on prefrontal cortex areas between control phase (sort blank cards) and study,
Conclusion: experiment shows that whether an infant passes/ fails a task is indicated by the activity in their PFC
What are some disorders of executive functions?
- ADHD
- Tourette syndrome
= all associated with impairments in EF (though EF is not enough to explain these disorders alone as not all children with these disorders have impairments in EF)
Also, evidence for EF impairments contributing to reading difficulty, specific language impairments and predicting behavioural problems.
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