Stress, Physiological Reactivity, and Memory Across Development

关于压力究竟如何影响儿童的记忆，存在着许多重要的理论和实践问题。实际上，问题集中在压力是否会干扰儿童在教育情境中的学习，压力是否会影响儿童目击报告的准确性，以及压力是否会影响儿童在临床环境中报告痛苦经历。从理论上讲，问题集中在哪些特定的生物和心理机制将童年时期的情感和认知过程联系在一起。尽管之前的研究已经研究了压力对儿童记忆的影响，但结果并不一致，部分原因是所研究的需要记住的事件的类型、压力的测量方式以及包括儿童在内的年龄差异很大。研究也没有直接比较儿童和青少年，尽管压力对记忆的影响可能会发生相当大的发展变化。目前的研究试图纠正这些混淆。总体目标是首先确定压力和记忆之间关系的发展变化，然后研究编码(即在要记住的事件期间)和提取(即在面试期间)的压力如何独立地共同影响儿童和青少年的记忆。在PI计划的研究中，6岁至20岁的男性和女性参与者将经历一次轻微压力的实验室事件，几周后，完成关于该事件的记忆测试。在要记住的事件和记忆访谈期间，将收集生理和行为压力反应的测量结果。包括广泛的年龄范围，再加上编码和提取时对压力的全面评估，将允许对压力和记忆之间的联系进行比迄今可能的更复杂的评估。此外，通过整合压力的生理和行为测量，可以更清楚地了解压力和记忆之间的联系机制。总体而言，从研究中获得的知识将为压力何时以及如何影响发育过程中的记忆提供亟需的答案。

Numerous important theoretical and practical questions exist concerning precisely how stress affects children's memory. Practically, questions focus on whether stress interferes with children's learning in educational situations, whether stress affects the accuracy of children's eyewitness reports, and whether stress influences children's reporting of distressing experiences in clinical settings. Theoretically, questions focus on which specific biological and psychological mechanisms link emotion and cognitive processes in childhood. Although prior studies have examined the effects of stress on children's memory, results have been inconsistent, in part because of large variations in the types of to-be-remembered events studied, in how stress was measured, and in the ages of children included. Studies have also not directly compared children and adolescents, despite the potential for considerable developmental change in the effects of stress on memory. The current studies seek to remedy these confounds. The overarching goals are first to identify developmental changes in the relations between stress and memory, and second to examine how stress at encoding (i.e., during a to-be-remember event) and retrieval (i.e., during an interview) independently and jointly affect children's and adolescents' memory.In the PI's planned studies, male and female participants, ages 6 through 20, will experience a mildly stressful laboratory event, and a few weeks later, complete a memory test about that event. Measures of physiological and behavioral stress responses will be collected, both during the to-be-remembered event and during the memory interview. The wide age range included, combined with the comprehensive assessment of stress at encoding and retrieval, will allow for a much more complex evaluation of the associations between stress and memory than has heretofore been possible. Moreover, by integrating physiological and behavioral measures of stress, clearer insight into the mechanisms linking stress and memory can be gained. Overall, knowledge derived from the studies will provide much-needed answers to questions about when and how stress affects memory across development.