Yang Yingying, Merrill Edward C
Department of Psychology, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ 07043, USA; Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510085, China.
Department of Psychology, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35401, USA.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2018 Mar;167:162-179. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2017.10.015. Epub 2017 Nov 22.
Objects in the environment have both location and identity properties. However, it is unclear how these independent properties are processed and combined in the implicit domain. The current study investigated the development of the implicit memory of object locations and object identities, both independently and combined, and the relation between implicit memory and working memory (WM) for these properties. Three age groups participated: 6- and 7-year-old children, 9- and 10-year-old children, and adults. Children and adults completed a repeated search paradigm. In the learning phase, targets' locations were consistently predicted by both the identities and locations of the distracters. In the test phase, either both remained predictive or just the identities or just the locations of the distracters predicted the location of the target. All groups showed significant implicit learning when both the identities and locations of the distracters remained predictive. When only the locations but not the identities of the distracters were predictive, adults and 9- and 10-year-olds showed significant learning, whereas 6- and 7-year-olds did not. When only the identities but not the locations of the distracters were predictive, none of the groups showed significant learning effects. In evaluating the contributions of either visual or spatial WM to implicit learning and memory, we found that children with smaller visual WM exhibited larger implicit memory effects for object identities than did children with larger visual WM. Taken together, the results indicate that children's ability to differentiate identity and location undergoes development even in the implicit domain.
环境中的物体具有位置和身份属性。然而，目前尚不清楚这些独立的属性在隐性领域是如何被处理和整合的。当前的研究调查了物体位置和物体身份的隐性记忆的发展，包括单独的和组合的情况，以及这些属性的隐性记忆与工作记忆（WM）之间的关系。研究参与对象分为三个年龄组：6至7岁的儿童、9至10岁的儿童和成年人。儿童和成年人完成了一个重复搜索范式。在学习阶段，干扰项的身份和位置都能一致地预测目标的位置。在测试阶段，要么两者都保持预测性，要么只有干扰项的身份或只有干扰项的位置能预测目标的位置。当干扰项的身份和位置都保持预测性时，所有组都表现出显著的隐性学习。当只有干扰项的位置而不是身份具有预测性时，成年人以及9至10岁的儿童表现出显著的学习，而6至7岁的儿童则没有。当只有干扰项的身份而不是位置具有预测性时，所有组均未表现出显著的学习效果。在评估视觉或空间工作记忆对隐性学习和记忆的贡献时，我们发现，视觉工作记忆较小的儿童在物体身份的隐性记忆效应上比视觉工作记忆较大的儿童更大。综合来看，结果表明，即使在隐性领域，儿童区分身份和位置的能力也在发展。
