Self-Conscious Memory

When are memories guided by conscious recollection of past event?
Examples:
•	Imitating a past action
•	Remembering events in World War II
•	Remembering learning about events in World War II
•	Remembering the first class in this course

Long-Term Memory
1. Procedural Memory:
•	Knowing how (e.g., to ride a bike)
2. Semantic Memory:
•	general store of knowledge (e.g., 12 x 12 = ?; Where does the Queen live?)
3. Episodic Memory:
Noetic (Knowing):
•	Type of memory task (e.g., presenting items at Time 1 and using a recognition test at Time 2 to tap memory)
•	Memory can often ensue via semantic memory system
Autonoetic (Self-Knowing): Tulving (1972)
•	Memory for where or how specific information learned
•	Allows understanding of protracted existence over time
•	Example: source memory
•	Remember experience of earlier event itself rather than just know because have been told so

How should one characterise children’s memories?
•	Are relatively good as early as 2-1/2 years at reporting past events (Fivush & Hammond, 1990)
•	Can be accomplished through semantic memory
•	Recall of an event in early years is triggered by semantic cues provided by interrogator (e.g., Fivush et al., 1991), and content of what recalled will differ depending on specific questions asked by experimenter  not guided by coherent internal representation of original situation
•	After 6 years, is coherence in what recalled over repeated situations
•	Differences also shown between 3- and 4-year-olds (Pillemer et al., 1994)

What specifically is required for episodic memory (in Tulving’s sense)?  (Perner, 2000)
1. Experience:
•	Must distinguish between “knowing” the past and “remembering” the past
•	Know: through being told or seeing on video or through inference
•	Remember: must have initially experienced the event

2. Causal Origins:
•	If know “X” through direct experience, but have forgotten how came to know, then is not an episodic memory
•	Must remember the direct experience which entails cause of memory
3. Subjective Sensations:
•	“When autonoetically aware, an individual can focus attention on his or her own subjective experience” (Wheeler, Stuss & Tulving, 1997, p.335)
•	In first class, I remember where I sat, where others sat, what Zoltan said, when some students came late, how I felt and what I was thinking
•	This involves a rich imagination of the situation that is like re-experiencing or simulating (imagining we are in situation again)

What Signals Readiness for When Children Become Able to Have Episodic Memories?
1. Metarepresentation
•	Enables one to reflect on earlier representations
•	Example: pass false belief tasks around 4 years
2. Causal Origins
•	Enables one to understand where memory came from
•	Example: begin to understand how they know something (seen something in box or told about it) around 4 years
•	Metarepresentation and understanding causal origins may be linked in that they are both grasped around 4 years & understanding causal origins entails understanding the representational relation

To what extent do different forms of memory require episodic memory?
Source Memory:
•	Did “X” occur in the video or in the tape?
•	Is a prototypical example of episodic memory
•	Marked improvement between 4 and 6 years, but minor improvement in recognition memory for whether statement new or old (Johnson & Kwon, 1991)
•	Foley and Johnson (1985): asked children whether they really touched their nose or just imagined touching their nose  6-year-olds confuse memories more than adults
•	Children do worse when sources are highly similar (Lindsay et al., 1991), & at distinguishing whether they imagined or said something (Foley, Johnson & Raye, 1983)
•	Taylor et al. (1994): between 4 and 6 years children become able to distinguish between recently learned words (e.g., “maroon”) and known words (e.g., “red”)
•	Suggestibility Paradigm: child witnesses an event (in person or on video), and then experiences a misleading description of the event (e.g., in person or on audiotape)  The more prone a child is to agreeing to misleading information, the worse they do on f.b. and a-r tasks (Welch-Ross, 1999)
•	If can’t remember direct experience of a remembered event, then are susceptible to misleading information because will have no clear memory of actual event to counteract misleading information

Recall
•	Example: What was on the list I just showed you?
•	Unlike recognition and cued recall, are no cues in question to trigger memory  so although can be based on gist or familiarity cues, requires more in way of episodic memory (remember original situation)
•	Recall correlates more highly with understanding of how knowledge is acquired than cued recall (Perner & Ruffman, 1995)
Infantile Amnesia
•	Example: adults typically don’t recall anything of their lives before 3 years, memories increase sharply between 3 and 5 or 6 years
•	Won’t remember early events if can’t simulate as “personally experienced”
•	So either (a) what is remembered is just some fact rather than an episodic memory, or (b) the event cannot be remembered because with no coherent experience to remember, other events create interference and wipe out knowledge of the event
False Memories
•	Example: claim to have seen a duck when hadn’t seen a duck
•	If can’t think back to original situation, then might rely on (a) familiarity, or (b) gist
•	If (a), will be prone to saying any familiar item was seen, & ducks are familiar
•	If (b) – e.g., I saw birds –will say duck because duck is a bird
•	If can think back to original situation then won’t say duck because will realise that although duck is familiar and consistent with gist, it was not a bird experienced originally
•	Young children are prone to false memories

Why is Episodic Memory Late Developing?
•	Development of episodic memory and source monitoring are typically linked to performance on executive function tasks and status of the frontal lobes (Johnson, Hashtroudi & Lindsay, 1993; Schacter et al., 1995; Wheeler et al., 1997)  are impaired in frontally damaged adults, in children with under-developed frontal lobes, and in elderly

Is difficulty with source monitoring and false alarms genuine or do children make claims without necessarily believing them?
Happen: What do you think? Did the newspaper boy walk down the path to the house? (Recognition)
Source: What do you think? Did the newspaper boy walk down the path to the house in only the tape, only the video, in both, or in neither?
Certainty: You said the newspaper boy did walk down the path to the house. So, how sure are you that he did? Use the counter to show me. (1 to 9 scale)

Certainty Ratings on the Source and Happen Questions

	Year 1	Year 3	Year 5	
Happen: Correct Answer “No”
Pass	
6.82a 	
6.64a 	
7.79a 	
Fail	7.23a 	6.90a 	5.14b 	
Happen: Correct Answer “Yes”
Pass	
7.93a 	
8.66a 	
8.37a 	
Fail	5.93b 	6.86b 	7.21b 	
Video Only Source Question:
Pass	
6.06a 	
7.40a 	
7.15a 	
Fail	6.24a 	7.89a 	7.67a 	
Tape Only Source Question:
Pass	
6.53a 	
8.04a 	
8.26a 	
Fail	6.90a 	7.17a 	5.97b 	
Neither Source Question:
Pass	
6.44a 	
7.80a 	
7.50a	
Fail	6.18a 	6.21b 	5.23b 	
Both Source Question:
Pass	
7.47a 	
8.71a 	
8.33a 	
Fail	5.86b 	6.81b 	6.44a 	

Note.
a a  or  b b  :means not significantly different
a b  :means significantly different

Conclusions:
•	Certainty ratings are sensitive to certainty
•	Year 1s and 3s have no insight into false alarms
•	Year 1s and 3s have limited insight into source errors