Doctoral School of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Izabella utca 46, 1064, Budapest, Hungary.
Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Izabella utca 46, 1064, Budapest, Hungary.
Sci Rep. 2021 Jun 14;11(1):12418. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-90560-5.
Extraction of environmental patterns underlies human learning throughout the lifespan and plays a crucial role not only in cognitive but also perceptual, motor, and social skills. At least two types of regularities contribute to acquiring skills: (1) statistical, probability-based regularities, and (2) serial order-based regularities. Memory performance of probability-based and/or serial order-based regularities over short periods (from minutes to weeks) has been widely investigated across the lifespan. However, long-term (months or year-long) memory performance of such knowledge has received relatively less attention and has not been assessed in children yet. Here, we aimed to test the long-term memory performance of probability-based and serial order-based regularities over a 1-year offline period in neurotypical children between the age of 9 and 15. Participants performed a visuomotor four-choice reaction time task designed to measure the acquisition of probability-based and serial order-based regularities simultaneously. Short-term consolidation effects were controlled by retesting their performance after a 5-h delay. They were then retested on the same task 1 year later without any practice between the sessions. Participants successfully acquired both probability-based and serial order-based regularities and retained both types of knowledge over the 1-year period. The successful retention was independent of age. Our study demonstrates that the representation of probability-based and serial order-based regularities remains stable over a long period of time. These findings offer indirect evidence for the developmental invariance model of skill consolidation.
环境模式的提取是人类在整个生命周期中学习的基础，它不仅在认知方面，而且在感知、运动和社交技能方面都起着至关重要的作用。至少有两种类型的规律有助于技能的习得：（1）基于统计的概率规律，以及（2）基于序列的规律。在整个生命周期中，人们广泛研究了基于概率和/或基于序列的规律在短时间内（从几分钟到几周）的记忆表现。然而，这种知识的长期（数月或一年）记忆表现相对较少受到关注，而且尚未在儿童中进行评估。在这里，我们旨在测试神经典型儿童在 9 至 15 岁之间，在 1 年的离线期间，基于概率和基于序列的规律的长期记忆表现。参与者执行了一项视觉运动四选择反应时间任务，旨在同时测量基于概率和基于序列的规律的习得。通过在 5 小时的延迟后重新测试他们的表现来控制短期巩固效果。然后，他们在没有任何练习的情况下，在 1 年后再次进行相同的任务测试。参与者成功地习得基于概率和基于序列的规律，并在 1 年内保留了这两种类型的知识。成功的保留与年龄无关。我们的研究表明，基于概率和基于序列的规律的表示在很长一段时间内保持稳定。这些发现为技能巩固的发展不变模型提供了间接证据。
