Examining the limits of memory-guided planning in 3- and 4-year olds

Blankenship, Tashauna L.; Kibbe, Melissa M.

doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2019.100820

Cited by 16 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…The planner can thus draw on both semantic (knowledge-based) and episodic (event-based) memory (Schacter & Addis, 2007;Schacter, Benoit, & Szpunar, 2017;Suddendorf & Corballis, 2007) when approaching a novel problem. We refer to the ability to draw on past knowledge and experiences to generate plans as memory-guided planning (Blankenship & Kibbe, 2019).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Memory-guided planning using episodic memory specifically is thought to be particularly crucial for typical cognitive functioning (Prabhakar, Coughlin, & Ghetti, 2016) since it involves selecting relevant episode-bound experiences and applying those experiences to a new problem (Atance & O'Neill, 2001;Blankenship & Kibbe, 2019). Much of the work examining the development of memory-guided planning has focused specifically on the development of episodic prospection, in which children are asked to use episodic memories to come up with hypothetical future scenarios, an ability that is critical in adult planning (e.g., Schacter, Benoit, & MEMORY-GUIDED PLANNING IN TWO-YEAR-OLDS 4 Szpunar, 2017).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…However, younger children have more success when they are asked to apply past experiences to execute, rather than articulate, a plan (Atance, Louw, & Clayton 2015;Blankenship & Kibbe, 2019;Prabhakar & Hudson, 2014;Suddendorf et al, 2011). For example, Blankenship and Kibbe (2019) examined 3-and 4-year-olds' capacity to deploy episodic memories to achieve novel, nested goals. Children first interacted with a box that had four drawers embedded in it, and were shown that the drawers could be opened by taking specific actions on four unique effectors on the box.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…when children are asked to take actions instead of articulate a plan; when memory demands are reduced by testing immediately following episodic memory formation). Previous work suggests that memoryguided planning undergoes significant development between 3 and 6 years of age, when children begin to develop more adult-like episodic prospection (Atance & Meltzoff, 2005;Blankenship & Kibbe, 2019;Suddendorf et al, 2011). However, because much work has focused on children 3 and up, the emergence of memory-guided planning is unknown.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…In the current series of experiments, we asked whether 24-36-month-old toddlers could retrieve relevant episodic memories and apply them in service of goals. We used variations on our decision-based task previously used to examine memory-guided planning in 3-4-year-old children (Blankenship & Kibbe, 2019). Crucially, the tasks were designed to be appropriate for 2-year-olds: the tasks encouraged memory-guided planning while minimizing response demands, and did not require children to have pre-existing knowledge acquired outside of the laboratory.…”

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Two-year-olds use past experiences to accomplish novel goals

Blankenship¹,

Kibbe²

2021

Preprint

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Memory-guided planning involves retrieving relevant memories and applying that information in service of a goal. Previous studies have shown substantial development in this ability between the ages of 3 and 4 years. We investigated the emergence of memory-guided planning by asking whether 2-year-olds could draw on episodic memories of past experiences to generate and execute plans. In Experiments 1 and 2, 2-year-olds successfully did so, and this ability developed significantly across the 3rd year. Furthermore, in Experiment 3 (n=19, d=.63), 2-year-olds successfully applied episodic memories to guide plans in a novel problem context, suggesting flexibility in this ability. Together, these results suggest that some form of memory-guided planning emerges in the 3rd year of life and may form the cognitive basis for episodic prospection later in development.

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Two-year-olds use past experiences to accomplish novel goals

Blankenship¹,

Kibbe²

2021

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Extended trajectory of spatial memory errors in typical and atypical development: The role of binding and precision

Peng,

Lovos,

Bottrill

et al. 2023

Hippocampus

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Spatial reconstruction, a method for evaluating how individuals remember the placement of objects, has traditionally been evaluated through the aggregate estimation of placement errors. However, this approach may obscure the nature of task errors. Specifically, recent data has suggested the importance of examining the precision of responses, as well as absolute performance on item‐context bindings. In contrast to traditional analysis approaches based on the distance between the target and the reconstructed item, in this study we further explored three types of errors (swap error, global error, and local distance) that may all contribute to the distance, with particular emphasis on swap errors and local distance due to their associations with item‐context bindings and memory precision, respectively. We examined these errors in children aged 3–18 years, making comparisons between children with typical development (TD) and children with Down syndrome (DS), a population with known memory challenges. As expected, older children outperformed younger children in terms of overall memory accuracy. Of importance is that we measured uneven maturational trajectories of memory abilities across the various error types. Specifically, both remembered locations (irrespective of object identity) and swap errors (object‐location binding errors) align with the overall memory accuracy. Memory precision, as measured by local distance in simpler set size 2 trials, mirrored overall memory accuracy. However, for more complex set size 3 trials, local distance remained stable before age 8 and showed age‐related change thereafter. The group with DS showed reduced precision compared to a TD matched group, and measures of precision, and to a lesser extent binding errors, correlated with standard neuropsychological outcomes. Overall, our study contributed to a fine‐grained understanding of developing spatial memory ability in a large sample of typical developing children and a memory impaired population. These findings contribute to a growing body of research examining precision as a key factor in memory performance.

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