University of Innsbruck, Austria.
Br J Dev Psychol. 2019 Jun;37(2):199-210. doi: 10.1111/bjdp.12267. Epub 2018 Sep 26.
Evidence primarily exists in adults that engaging in task-related mental activity after new learning results in increased forgetting of learned information, compared with quietly resting in the minutes that follow learning, where less forgetting is observed. The current study investigated whether the beneficial effect of post-encoding rest can be observed in children aged 13-14 years. Each child (N = 102) encoded two word lists. After the presentation and immediate recall of one word list, children wakefully rested for 10 min (resting condition), after presentation and immediate recall of the other word list, they solved visuo-spatial problems for 10 min (problem-solving condition). Seven days later, a surprise free recall test for the two word lists took place. Our results showed that children retained more words over 7 days in the resting condition than with the problem-solving condition. Post-hoc analyses revealed that the resting effect was a function of the number of words recollected during the immediate recall. Specifically, those children who recalled fewest words (≤ 13/30 words) in the immediate recall showed a significant resting effect. There was no resting effect in those who recalled a mid-range (14-16/30 words) or a high number (>16/30 words) of words. These results provide new insights into the factors that influence memory in children, and suggest that a few minutes of wakeful rest benefits memory, relative to engaging in an ongoing task. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? Task-related mental activity after encoding weakens memory retention more than wakeful resting. Beneficial effect of resting after encoding was found primarily in younger and older adults. What does this study add? We investigated children at the age of 13-14 years. 8-min post-encoding wakeful resting supports memory retention over 7 days. Individuals differ in the impact of a brief period of wakeful resting after learning. Only children with lower immediate memory performances profited from wakeful resting.
证据主要存在于成年人中，即在新学习后进行与任务相关的心理活动会导致所学信息的遗忘增加，而在学习后几分钟内安静休息则观察到遗忘较少。本研究调查了在 13-14 岁的儿童中是否可以观察到编码后休息的有益效果。每个孩子（N=102）都编码了两个单词列表。在呈现和即时回忆一个单词列表后，孩子们清醒地休息 10 分钟（休息条件），在呈现和即时回忆另一个单词列表后，他们解决视觉空间问题 10 分钟（问题解决条件）。七天后，对两个单词列表进行了惊喜自由回忆测试。我们的结果表明，与解决问题的条件相比，在休息条件下，孩子们在七天内记住的单词更多。事后分析表明，休息效果是即时回忆中回忆单词数量的函数。具体来说，在即时回忆中回忆单词最少（≤13/30 个单词）的孩子表现出显著的休息效果。在回忆中等范围（14-16/30 个单词）或回忆大量（>16/30 个单词）单词的孩子中没有休息效果。这些结果为影响儿童记忆的因素提供了新的见解，并表明几分钟的清醒休息相对于进行持续任务更有益于记忆。
