Willoughby Karen A, Desrocher Mary, Levine Brian, Rovet Joanne F
Neuroscience and Mental Health Program, The Hospital for Sick Children Toronto, ON, Canada.
Front Psychol. 2012 Feb 28;3:53. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00053. eCollection 2012.
Few studies have examined both episodic and semantic autobiographical memory (AM) performance during late childhood and early adolescence. Using the newly developed Children's Autobiographical Interview (CAI), the present study examined the effects of age and sex on episodic and semantic AM and everyday memory in 182 children and adolescents. Results indicated that episodic and semantic AM both improved between 8 and 16 years of age; however, age-related changes were larger for episodic AM than for semantic AM. In addition, females were found to recall more episodic AM details, but not more semantic AM details, than males. Importantly, this sex difference in episodic AM recall was attenuated under conditions of high retrieval support (i.e., the use of probing questions). The ability to clearly visualize past events at the time of recollection was related to children's episodic AM recall performance, particularly the retrieval of perceptual details. Finally, similar age and sex effects were found between episodic AM and everyday memory ability (e.g., memory for everyday activities). More specifically, older participants and females exhibited better episodic AM and everyday memory performance than younger participants and males. Overall, the present study provides important new insight into both episodic and semantic AM performance, as well as the relation between episodic AM and everyday memory, during late childhood and adolescence.
很少有研究考察儿童晚期和青少年早期的情景性和语义性自传体记忆（AM）表现。本研究使用新开发的儿童自传体访谈（CAI），考察了年龄和性别对182名儿童和青少年的情景性和语义性AM以及日常记忆的影响。结果表明，情景性和语义性AM在8至16岁之间均有所改善；然而，与年龄相关的变化在情景性AM中比在语义性AM中更大。此外，发现女性比男性回忆起更多的情景性AM细节，但语义性AM细节并不更多。重要的是，在高检索支持条件下（即使用探测性问题），情景性AM回忆中的这种性别差异会减弱。在回忆时清晰地想象过去事件的能力与儿童的情景性AM回忆表现有关，特别是感知细节的检索。最后，在情景性AM和日常记忆能力（例如，对日常活动的记忆）之间发现了类似的年龄和性别效应。更具体地说，年龄较大的参与者和女性比年龄较小的参与者和男性表现出更好的情景性AM和日常记忆表现。总体而言，本研究为儿童晚期和青少年期的情景性和语义性AM表现以及情景性AM与日常记忆之间的关系提供了重要的新见解。
