Geng Fengji, Canada Kelsey, Riggins Tracy
a Department of Psychology , University of Maryland , College Park , MD , USA.
Memory. 2018 Apr;26(4):451-461. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2017.1366526. Epub 2017 Aug 22.
Previous studies have found that children show rapid and significant improvements in their ability to remember individual items and the contextual details that surround these items (i.e., episodic memory) during early childhood. Encoding processes have been suggested to contribute to the development of episodic memory; however, few studies have investigated encoding processes. The goal of the current study was to examine age- and performance-related effects on encoding in children between 4 and 8 years of age using event-related potentials (ERPs). Results revealed effects of both age and performance on encoding, as indexed by the ERPs response. However, the nature of these effects differed between subsequent recognition and subsequent recollection, as well as for the two ERP components (i.e., Nc and LSW) examined. These findings are important as they contribute empirical evidence that encoding processes show developmental change across early childhood. In addition, these findings highlight the importance of controlling for performance differences in future studies examining developmental changes in episodic memory.
以往的研究发现，幼儿在记忆单个项目以及围绕这些项目的情境细节（即情景记忆）的能力方面会有快速且显著的提升。有研究表明编码过程有助于情景记忆的发展；然而，很少有研究对编码过程进行调查。本研究的目的是使用事件相关电位（ERP）来检验4至8岁儿童编码过程中与年龄和表现相关的影响。结果显示，ERP反应表明年龄和表现对编码均有影响。然而，这些影响的性质在后续识别和后续回忆之间以及在所检测的两个ERP成分（即Nc和LSW）方面有所不同。这些发现很重要，因为它们提供了实证证据，表明编码过程在幼儿期会发生发展变化。此外，这些发现凸显了在未来研究情景记忆发展变化时控制表现差异的重要性。
