Everyday memory decisions (e.g., Is that the neighbor's son crossing the street?) may benefit from cues from the environment (e.g., I am near his elementary school, therefore it is likely to be him). Although both adults and children are faced with situations where external information can be helpful, virtually no research has investigated the emergence of this skill and very little research has examined the neural mechanisms underlying its development. Most developmental literature investigating the influence of external context focuses on the negative consequences resulting from inaccurate or misleading information in the domain of eyewitness testimony. However, a comprehensive understanding of the interaction between memory and decision-making requires not only that one investigates these negative consequences, but also the adaptive nature of incorporating reliable external information. The current proposal will investigate: the emergence and development of adaptive recognition biases (Aim 1), and the developmental differences in neural activation accompanying adaptive memory biasing (Aim 2). Prior research demonstrates that adults can adaptively bias decisions when provided with reliable external cues (reading Likely Old or Likely New on the screen) during a recognition test. Critically, although these external cues are frequently valid, a small proportion of trials are invalidly cued (e.g., a novel item presented after a Likely Old cue). Functional imaging data demonstrate that fronto-parietal regions are particularly important for overcoming invalidly cued expectations and three specialized activation patterns occur dependent on whether the item is generally unexpected, unexpectedly familiar, or unexpectedly novel. Since frontal and parietal regions continue to develop structurally and functionally into young adulthood, it is important to determine the putative role of these regions in adaptive memory biasing throughout development. The proposed research will investigate the emergence and development of adaptive memory biases behaviorally by having various age groups (ages 5-14) complete a cued recognition task where reliable external cues reading Likely Old or Likely New appear before each recognition probe. We predict that children ages 9 and older will appropriately incorporate external cues and that this skill will continue to improve throughout development. Younger children are expected to respond to the cues, but not adaptively. We predict 5 year-olds will over-rely on external cues while 7 year-olds will begin to show some ability to incorporate cues for correct recognition but not correct rejections. We will also investigate neural activity accompanying memory biases using functional magnetic resonance imaging with children ages 9 and older, with the prediction that younger age groups will demonstrate a reduction in one or more of the specialized responses seen in adults. Overall, the proposed research advances our understanding of memory and decision-making processes during healthy development and can also help inform research where memory development is atypical.
The ability to recognize past events and use these recognitions adaptively is impaired in several mental health and neurodevelopmental disorders that emerge during childhood or adolescence, including autism, schizophrenia, and depression. The proposed research will investigate how children and adolescents integrate reliable external information into their memory decisions and how fronto-parietal regions support this development.
| Selmeczy, Diana; Dobbins, Ian G (2017) Ignoring memory hints: The stubborn influence of environmental cues on recognition memory. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 43:1448-1469 |
| Fandakova, Yana; Selmeczy, Diana; Leckey, Sarah et al. (2017) Changes in ventromedial prefrontal and insular cortex support the development of metamemory from childhood into adolescence. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 114:7582-7587 |
