Psychology
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Item A meta-analysis of the relation between hippocampal volume and memory ability in typically developing children and adolescents(Wiley, 2022-03-17) Botdorf, Morgan; Canada, Kelsey L.; Riggins, TracyMemory is supported by a network of brain regions, with the hippocampus serving a critical role in this cognitive process. Previous meta-analyses on the association between hippocampal structure and memory have largely focused on adults. Multiple studies have since suggested that hippocampal volume is related to memory performance in children and adolescents; however, the strength and direction of this relation varies across reports, and thus, remains unclear. To further understand this brain–behavior relation, we conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the association between hippocampal volume (assessed as total volume) and memory during typical development. Across 25 studies and 61 memory outcomes with 1357 participants, results showed a small, but significant, positive association between total hippocampal volume and memory performance. Estimates of the variability across studies in the relation between total volume and memory were not explained by differences in memory task type (delayed vs. immediate; relational vs. nonrelational), participant age range, or the method of normalization of hippocampal volumes. Overall, findings suggest that larger total hippocampal volume relates to better memory performance in children and adolescents and that this relation is similar across the memory types and age ranges assessed. To facilitate enhanced generalization across studies in the future, we discuss considerations for the field moving forward.Item Relations between Memory Measures and Hippocampal Volumes in Early Childhood(2020-05) Fine, Carli; Riggins, TracyThe phenomenon of childhood amnesia, in which only a mere fraction of childhood experiences is remembered, may be due to changes in the underlying neural mechanisms supporting memory. However, this assumption is largely based on measures of memory from lab-based tasks, which show relations with specific brain areas. It is unclear whether tasks in the lab used to measure childhood memory skills map onto children’s memory for experiences in everyday life. This study aimed to address this gap by investigating the potential relation between two different tasks completed by 200 4- to 8-year-old children. Specifically, children completed both a rich, open-ended autobiographical interview examining children’s recall for real-world events, and a controlled, laboratory-based assessment that examines children’s memory for temporal order. This study assessed whether both/either tasks show 1) age-related differences, 2) relations to each other, and 3) relations to the volume of the hippocampus, a neural structure thought to be critical for memory. Results indicated that performance on both tasks show positive age-related differences, and relations to each other. However, neither task was related to the hippocampus. Overall, this work contributes new knowledge regarding memory development by examining the extent to which naturalistic versus laboratory-based tasks similarly measure children’s developing memory abilities, and suggests important avenues of future research.Item Early Life Stress Predicts Decreased Total Brain Volume, Cortical Thickness, and Cognitive Functioning in School-Age Children(2018) Chad-Friedman, Emma; Dougherty, Lea R; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Severe early life stress (ELS) (e.g., maltreatment/institutionalization) is associated with atypical neurological and cognitive development. Few studies have prospectively examined the neurological mechanisms underlying the cognitive deficits associated with less severe and more common forms of ELS. The current study examined the impact of common forms of ELS assessed during early childhood on children’s brain volume, cortical thickness, and memory and executive functioning assessed three years later in school age children, controlling for current stress. Participants included 63 children (50.8% female) assessed during preschool (Wave 1 age: M=4.23 years, SD=.84) and three years later (Wave 2 age: M=7.19 years, SD=.89). ELS included low socioeconomic status, single parent household, low parental education, child exposure to parental depression, and child exposure to high parental hostility. Children’s current life stress, cognitive abilities, and brain structure were assessed at Wave 2. ELS predicted reduced total gray volume, cortex volume, right inferior parietal thickness, and right superior parietal thickness, controlling for covariates and current stress. ELS also predicted poorer memory and attention shifting, controlling for current stress. Right superior parietal thickness mediated the effects of ELS on story recall memory. Results highlight the possible consequences of less severe forms of ELS on brain volume and cognitive functioning, suggesting potential neural mechanisms to further explore. Early childhood may be a particularly important time for intervention efforts to mitigate the neural and cognitive risks associated with early stress exposure.Item Grounding Judgment Phenomena in Memory: Examining the Role of Retrieval in the Estimation of Events(2018) Nguyen, Rosalind; Dougherty, Michael; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Suppose you were running late to work and had to decide which route to take that would give you the best chance of getting to work on time. How do you come up with the various routes to consider? How do you assess which route will give you the best chance of getting to work on time? In order to make that decision, you may think about all the prior routes you’ve taken and then evaluate each one with some probability of getting the desired outcome. On the surface, the act of generating choices and evaluating their likelihood may seem to have little in common. However, one may be surprised to learn that these processes are closely intertwined. The findings from this project suggest that judgments of likelihood may be constrained by one’s ability to retrieve from semantic memory. In experiment 1, we demonstrate that one’s general ability to retrieve from long-term memory (LTM) may play a critical role in judgments of likelihood and that the nature of the retrieval may relate differentially to different types of event estimation. In experiment 2, we assess different measurement models of memory and find that the type of relation between memory and judgment changes as the function of the type of memory model that one adopts. Finally, combined data across both experiments reveal that how the to-be-judged items are distributed plays a role in judgments and that retrieval ability, specifically, semantic memory, is predictive of probability judgments. Taken together, we argue that the ability to retrieve from LTM plays a critical role in judging the likelihood of an event occurring.Item Developmental differences in relations between parent-reported executive function and unitized and non-unitized memory representations during childhood(Frontiers, 2015-08-19) Blankenship, Sarah L.; Riggins, TracyPrevious research has documented an association between executive functioning (EF) and memory for bound details. However, it is unknown if this relation varies as a function of the type of bound information (i.e., unitized versus non-unitized) and whether this association changes as a function of age during childhood, when both EF and memory undergo rapid development. The current study sought to address these gaps by examining whether relations between parent-reported EF differed for unitized versus non-unitized memory representations and if these relations differed between children who were 4, 6, or 8 years of age. Results revealed that EF was selectively associated with non-unitized associative memory in 8-year-old children; no significant relations between EF and either memory condition were evident in 4- or 6-year-olds. These results suggest relations between EF and memory may be specific to non-unitized representations and that this association may emerge across childhood as both EF and memory abilities develop.Item Infants' representations and memories of their social-emotional interactions(2013) Sherman, Laura Jernigan; Cassidy, Jude; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)According to several theorists, infants form mental representations and memories of their social-emotional interactions (e.g., Bowlby, 1969/1982), but very few studies have investigated these claims. Across two studies, I hypothesized that 10-month-old infants would form representations and memories of their social-emotional interactions. In Study 1, infants (N = 24) were familiarized to a positive and negative puppet and their representations and memories were assessed with visual-paired comparison (VPC) and forced-choice tests. Ten minutes after their interactions, but not immediately after, significantly more infants chose the positive puppet (17/24, p = .030). To better understand these results, I conducted another study in which infants (N = 32) were randomly assigned to be familiarized to either a positive and neutral puppet or a negative and neutral puppet. In the positive condition infants were more likely to choose the positive puppet immediately after (12/16, p =.038), but not 10 minutes after the interactions, whereas in the negative condition infants' choices were at chance - but older infants were more likely choose the neutral puppet (Mdiff = 11.50 days, p = .022). In both studies, no effects emerged with infants' preferential looking. Overall, the results indicated that infants' representations and memories of their brief social-emotional interactions were stronger for positive than negative interactions. Results are discussed with regard to existing theory and research and the negativity bias hypothesis.Item Beyond the Gong: Relations Between Elicited Imitation Performance at 20-40 Months of Age and Memory at 6 Years(2005-04) DeBoer, T.; Cheatham, C.L.; Stark, E.; Bauer, P.J.Item In the language of multiple memory systems, defining and describing developments in long-term explicit memory.(2007) Bauer, P.J.; DeBoer, T.; Lukowski, A.F.Item Forming a stable memory representation in the first year of life: Why imitation is more than child's play.(2005) Lukowski, A.F.; Wiebe, S.A.; Haight, J.C.; DeBoer, T.; Nelson, C.A.; Bauer, P.J.Although 9-month-old infants are capable of retaining temporally ordered information over long delays, this ability is relatively fragile. It may be possible to facilitate long-term retention by allowing infants to imitate event sequences immediately after their presentation. The effects of imitation on immediate and delayed recognition and on long-term recall were investigated using event-related potentials (ERPs) and elicited imitation, respectively. Mnemonic facilitation resulting from the opportunity to imitate was apparent using both assessments. ERP assessments at immediate and delayed recognition tests suggested that infants who were allowed to imitate had stronger memory representations of familiar stimuli relative to infants who only viewed the presentation of the events. In addition, infants who were allowed to imitate evidenced higher levels of ordered recall after 1 month relative to infants who only watched the experimenter’s demonstration. Therefore, imitation proved to have beneficial effects on explicit memory in 9 1 / 2 -month-olds, providing evidence of its effectiveness as a tool to augment mnemonic capabilities in infancy.Item Sequential Hypothesis Generation(2007-03-16) Sprenger, Amber; Dougherty, Michael R.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This paper examined how decision makers generate and evaluate hypotheses when data are presented sequentially. Hypothesis generation occurs in many judgment and decision making tasks, but no research has yet examined the underlying processes of hypothesis generation when data occur sequentially. In a series of three experiments, participants learned the relationship between data and possible causes of the data in a virtual environment. Data were then presented iteratively and participants either generated hypotheses they thought caused the data or rated the probability of possible causes of the data. In a fourth experiment, participants generated hypotheses and made probability judgments based on previously-stored general knowledge. The four experiments examined whether different orders of data led decision makers to consider different sets of hypotheses. Findings revealed that participants weighted data presented later in a sequence more heavily than data presented early in a sequence when responding after each datum was presented. Future experimental directions are detailed and potential assumptions necessary for a model to account for sequential hypothesis generation behavior are discussed.