Collaborative Research: The Development of Memory for Temporal Information

这个项目旨在阐明儿童对过去事件的记忆的发展。它试图了解不同年龄段儿童的能力以及这一重要人类能力所涉及的过程。作为研究时间发展心理学的学者更广泛研究计划的一部分，这项工作将帮助我们更好地理解时间知识的增长。其中最大的一项研究将提供有关4至14岁儿童回忆过去三年事件时间的能力的规范性信息。访谈将测试儿童对时间、频率和事件细节的记忆，并测量儿童对时间模式的一般知识以及他们使用推理和其他重建过程的能力。另一项研究将需要检查庭审记录，以确定律师询问不同年龄儿童的时间问题的类型，以及问题形式与准确性之间的关系。将进行更多的研究，以提供更多关于作为成熟时间记忆能力基础的过程发展的信息。在一项研究中，孩子们将回忆起6个月前的实验事件，并详细测试与重建相关的能力。例如，访谈将提供对事件的时间相关细节及其与其他事件的邻接性的记忆测量，对时间的一般知识，以及选择和评估可能在逻辑上限制时间的信息的能力。另一项研究将通过询问儿童记忆过去事件的过程、性质和局限性，重点发展儿童如何记忆过去时间的显性知识。还有一项实验将通过让孩子们判断过去几个月实验和学校活动的顺序，来探索儿童记忆的发展，以获得关于过去事件的顺序信息。在该项目的最后部分，将开发方法并进行实证测试，以提高儿童对记忆事件时间的证词的准确性。这将导致制定关于就事件发生的时间对儿童进行法医面谈的建议。总体而言，该项目有望提高心理学家、教育工作者和法律专业人士对记忆发展的一个重要方面的理解：不同年龄的儿童如何记住过去事件的时间。这项工作还将为法律专业人员和立法者提供有用的信息，他们必须就不同年龄的儿童就事件的时间作证的能力做出决定。此外，该项目将导致开发改进对儿童的法医面谈的技术。

This project is designed to elucidate the development of children's memory for the times of past events. It is an attempt to learn about the abilities of children of different ages and the processes involved in this important human ability. As part of a broader program of research by scholars who study the developmental psychology of time, this work will help us better understand the growth of temporal knowledge. The largest of the studies will provide normative information about the abilities of children ranging in age from 4 to 14 years to recall the times of events from the last three years. The interview will test memory for the times, frequencies, and details of the events and measure children's general knowledge of time patterns and their ability to use inference and other reconstructive processes. Another study will entail examining trial transcripts to determine the types of questions about time that attorneys ask children of different ages and the relation between question form and accuracy. Additional studies will be conducted to provide further information about the development of the processes that underlie mature time-memory abilities. In one study children will recall experimental events from 6 months earlier and abilities related to reconstruction will be examined in detail. For example, the interview will provide measures of memory for temporally relevant details of the event and its contiguity to other events, general knowledge of time, and the ability to select and evaluate information that could logically constrain the time. Another study will focus on the development of children's explicit knowledge of how to remember past times, by asking children about the processes, properties, and limitations of remembering the times of past events. Still another experiment will probe the development of children's memory for information about the order of past events by having them judge the order of experimental and school events from many months in the past. In the final component of the project, methods will be developed and empirically tested for improving the accuracy of children's testimony about the times of remembered events. This will lead to the development of recommendations for forensic interviews of children about the times of events. Overall, the project is expected to improve psychologists', educators', and legal professionals' understanding of an important aspect of memory development: how children of different ages remember the times of past events. The work will also provide information that will be useful to legal professionals and legislators who must make decisions about the capacity of children of different ages to testify about the times of events. Further, the project will lead to the development of techniques for improving forensic interviews of children.