Linking Episodes in Memory and Development

描述（由申请人提供）：像大多数心理现象一样，学习和记忆受到许多因素的影响，并随着发展而发生显著变化。此外，它们还相互作用：一个孩子在过去学到的东西会影响（虽然并不决定）他/她记得什么，而孩子从一次经历中记住的东西限制了他/她从中学到的东西。尽管学习和记忆密切相关，孩子们如何及时地将各个事件联系起来，从而有助于发展一般知识基础的基本问题已经在很大程度上消失了。未开发的这个问题特别重要，因为儿童进入学校，发现自己所处的环境要求他们整合在不同时间和不同背景下获得的信息。这项研究的目的是启动一项系统的研究，研究在不同时间学到的信息如何在记忆中联系起来。研究不同情节的元素的相似性。这三个目标在两个实验中进行，实验对象是5至6岁的儿童（分别是幼儿园和一年级）。之所以选择这个年龄段，是因为在这段时间里提出了正规教育的要求，包括期望儿童在一个学期中积累信息，并能够将其与以前学到的信息结合起来。这种工具是一种共享的书籍阅读，这是一种儿童从婴儿期就开始参与的活动，并期望他们从中获得知识。学习和记忆是相互联系的：孩子学到的东西会影响他/她记住的东西。然而，孩子们如何将各个事件及时联系起来，从而促进一般知识基础的发展，这在很大程度上尚未得到探索。当儿童进入学龄时，这个问题尤其重要，因为在学龄期间，整合信息的能力受损与学业失败和心理健康状况不佳（包括焦虑和抑郁）有关。这项研究启动了对记忆中独立事件联系的发展变化的系统研究。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Like most psychological phenomena, learning and memory are influenced by many factors and undergo pronounced changes with development. Moreover, they interact with one another: what a child has learned in the past influences (though does not determine) what s/he remembers, and what a child remembers from an experience constrains what s/he learns from it. Although learning and memory are intimately linked, the fundamental question of how children connect individual episodes in time so that they contribute to the development of a general knowledge base has gone largely unexplored. The question is especially relevant as children enter the school years and find themselves in settings that demand that they integrate information that has been acquired at different times and in different contexts. The purpose of the proposed research is to initiate a systematic study of how information learned at different times becomes linked in memory. The research similarity of the elements of the separate episodes. These three aims are pursued in two experiments with children 5 to 6 years of age (kindergarten and first grade, respectively). The age range was selected because it is during this time that the demands of formal schooling are introduced, including the expectation that children will accumulate information over the course of a term, and be able to integrate it with information learned previously. The vehicle is a shared book reading, an activity in which children engage from infancy and from which they are expected to acquire knowledge. Learning and memory are linked: what a child learns influences what s/he remembers. Yet how children link individual episodes in time so that they contribute to the growth of a general knowledge base has gone largely unexplored. The question is especially relevant as children enter their school years where impaired ability to integrate information is associated with academic failure and poor mental health (including anxiety and depression). The proposed research initiates systematic study of developmental changes in the linkage of separate episodes in memory.