HLTHPSYC 122 Clinical and developmental implications of memory and forgetting

LO’s:

  • • Explain age-related changes in memory across:

    • Infancy, childhood, adulthood, older age

  • Describe factors that affect accuracy of memory: Misinformation effect and false memories

  • Apply the evidence on memory errors and memory development to clinical interviewing of children, adults, and our aging population

  • Define dementia and two common types: Cerebrovascular and Alzheimer's

  • Describe symptoms, risk and protective factors, and biological changes associated with Alzheimer's

Infantile amnesia

  • can’t retrieve memories from age of three

    • earliest 3-3.5 years

Memory in childhood

  • memory is a set of processes

  • in early infancy neural pathways being rapidly made - connections used are kept, others pruned away

  • sensory and cognitive processes in childhood support development of memory

  • neurobiological changes in combination with social interactions support memory

  • long term recall determined by how connections laid down

    • cerebral cortex - rapidly developing

Memory infancy and toddlerhood

  • memory present but implicit

    • remember (retrieve) without conscious awareness

    • e.g. movement and consequences - hold bottle and tip = milk

Infancy

  • not developed language yet - memory processing largely non-verbal

    • phonological loop processed through verbal memory - not yet developed

    • prevent retention of early memory

  • can remember visual patterns and motion action patterns

    • cognitive stage of development

    • discriminating faces - explicit

  • better memory retention with increased exposure to stimulus

Toddler

  • recall improving for people and places

  • brain development of parent child interaction start to jointly foster toddler self awareness

    • decline of infantile amnesia - autobiographical memories

Infant memory research example - mobile conjugate reinforcement task

  • how to test memory in infant that can’t speak yet?

  • mobile conjugate reinforcement task

  • procedural learning and long term memory retention + implicit memory capabilities

  • operant conditioning

  • kicking motions e.g. in cot

  • measure number of kicks

  • foot attached to mobile - move foot, move mobile

  • 3-6 months increase frequency of kicks once attached to mobile = remember association, higher amount of kicks

  • significant retention over number of days

  • response lasts longer as infant is older

  • encoding specificity = match environment for encoding and retrieval

Memory in early childhood

  • short attention span

  • better sustained attention, continues

  • child’s ability to inhibit impulses, complete goals one time

  • planning adn processing speed better

  • info processing

  • recognition better than recall

  • able to recall three items from set

  • associated with language development

  • language skills to describe what remember and follow instructions - easier to be tested

  • episodic memory increased - things they did rather than saw

  • e.g. drawing, parents talking and elaborating on shared experience

  • reinforce encoding

Implicit memory develops first

  • behavioural change without conscious awareness

  • brain structures implicit memory available before explicit memory retrieval

Middle childhood

  • more understanding what memory is - how to consciously retrieve e.g. mnemonics

  • rehearsal - repeating

  • more elaboration and association with different elements enhance

  • grouping of related items - hat - head, shoe - foot

  • then more gourds to clothing, food, more complex

  • more complex patterns = enhance encoding and retrieval

Causes of memory problems in childhood

  • neuro developmental disorders- differences in attention, encode adn retrieve

  • fetal alcohol syndrome - brain changes, attention deficit, memory impairment

  • brain injury - traumatic or infection, congenital,

  • psychosocial factors

  • sleep problems

Morning memory test

  • reconstruct memory - remember events that dont happen

  • primacy effect - first listed

  • regency effect - last one listed

Accuracy of memory

  • prone to post event suggestion

  • misinformation effect - misleading info incorporated into memory after event, suggestive techniques

  • false memory = recollections that feel real but aren’t

Mis-information = does not intent to cause harm

Dis-information = you know isn’t true but share anyways

Implications for interviewing

  • high pressure

  • children give false info when suggestive interviewer - please interviewer, agreeing - ‘okay to not know answer’

  • also adults vulnerable to suggest ability

  • open ended questions for more reliable accounts

Age stereotypes

  • affect people’s perception of ability and expectations for memory performance

  • research reduce memory recline with age - deficits and strengths

Changes in memory processing across adulthood

Crystallised intelligence

  • skills depending on accumulated knowldge and experiences

  • judgement, social skills

  • semantic (factorial) procedural (action) memory

Fluid intelligence

  • info processing skills

  • ability to detect relationships between stimuli

  • capacity of working memory

Memory in adulthood

  • memory circulation for all aspects memory processing

  • amount of memory that’s can be held starts to diminish

  • decrease in use of different complex memory strategy

  • due to slowing of processing speed of working memory

  • hard to multitask

  • harder to filter irrelevant stimuli