Developmental differences in memory for cross‐modal associations

Abstract

Associative learning is critical to normal cognitive development in children. However, young adults typically outperform children on paired-associate tasks involving visual, verbal and spatial location stimuli. The present experiment investigated cross-modal odour-place associative memory in children (7-10 years) and young adults (18-24 years). During the study phase, six odours were individually presented and paired with one of 12 spatial locations on a board. During the test phase, participants were presented with the six stimuli individually and were asked to place each stimulus on the correct spatial location. Children committed significantly more errors on the odour-place task than did young adults. However, item recognition memory for the odours or spatial locations involved in the odour-place associative memory task was similar between children and young adults. Therefore, poor odour-place associative memory in children did not result from impaired memory for the individual odours or spatial locations involved in the associations. The results suggest that cross-modal associative memory is not fully developed in children.

The Interplay Between Multisensory Associative Learning and IQ in Children

“…The generalized novel multisensory learning advantage (relative to unisensory incidental learning) found in adults by Fifer et al (2013) was not evident in children. This finding is consistent with other studies that have shown immaturities in different types of multisensory learning, such as visual-haptic learning and incidental learning of auditory-visual object categories, throughout childhood (Broadbent et al, 2018;Pirogovsky, Murphy, & Gilbert, 2009). The novel-AV learning advantage observed in adults may be explained by differences in multisensory integration and attention abilities.…”

A review on the neural bases of episodic odor memory: from laboratory-based to autobiographical approaches

“…The odor source paradigm tests the ability to retrieve limited contextual information associated with the odor perception during encoding. For instance, participants were asked to explicitly remember either a specific room (Takahashi, 2003) or a specific space on a board (Gilbert et al, 2008; Pirogovsky et al, 2009) in which the odors were initially presented or to remember the gender of the experimenter presenting the odors during the encoding phase (Gilbert et al, 2006; Pirogovsky et al, 2006; Hernandez et al, 2008). Overall, these studies demonstrated that odor recognition is superior to the recognition of the source, that explicit vs. implicit encoding improves the memory for the source but not for the odor itself, and that aging affects odor source memory than on odor recognition (Takahashi, 2003; Gilbert et al, 2006, 2008; Pirogovsky et al, 2006, 2009; Hernandez et al, 2008).…”

The Development of Associate Learning in School Age Children

“…Provided the number of pairs to be learned exceeds working memory capacity (e.g., one or two pairs), associate learning abilities are defined by the extent to which individuals who have learned those pairs can later recall one of the pair after exposure to the other [2], [5]–[11]. Because associate learning is important for optimal adaptive behavior in both educational and general life contexts, it is important to understand its development in children [3], [4], [12]–[14]. Furthermore, identification of impairment in associate learning in children can assist with the identification or diagnosis of brain disorders [15]–[18].…”

“…Developmental studies show associate learning improves from childhood through adolescence into young adulthood [3], [19]–[23]. However, as most of these studies have measured the ability to form associations between verbal stimuli [19], [23] or easily verbalized visual stimuli (e.g.…”