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There are many parallels between human and nonhuman animal cognitive abilities, suggesting an evolutionary basis for many forms of cognition, including memory. For instance, past research found that two chimpanzees exhibited an isolation effect, or improved memory for semantically distinctive items on a list (Beran, 2011). These results support the notion that chimpanzees are capable of semantic, relational processing in memory, and introduce the possibility that other effects observed in humans, such as distinctiveness effects or false memories, may be present in nonhuman species. The Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm is a commonly used task to explore these phenomena, and it was adapted for use with chimpanzees. We tested four chimpanzees for isolation effects during encoding, distinctiveness effects during recognition, and potential “false memories” generated by the DRM paradigm by presenting a serial recognition memory task. The isolation effect previously reported (Beran, 2011) was not replicated in this experiment. Two of four chimpanzees showed improved recognition performance when information about distinctiveness could be used to exclude incorrect responses. None of the chimpanzees were significantly impaired in the “false memory” condition. However, limitations to this approach are discussed that require caution about assuming identical memory processes in these chimpanzees and in humans.

The ability to perform an intended behavior in some future circumstance, known as prospective memory (PM), is an important cognitive ability for young children to develop. In this study, we examined PM in preschool children, with the addition of an output monitoring component, which is the ability to remember whether a previously intended action was completed. Participants were engaged in an ongoing task of sorting cards with a variety of images such as animals, tools, and foods by the size of pictures on the card. They were also instructed to sort any cards with animals into cardboard boxes marked as zoos. The first time any given animal was seen, it was to be placed in 'Zoo 1,' and if the same animal was noticed again, it was to be placed in 'Zoo 2.' Participants completed the task 3 times (each with different targets) on 3 separate days. Participants' PM accuracy improved with practice. There was a relationship between age and PM performance on the first trial, with older children detecting more PM targets. This relationship was not present on the second and third trials, and a significant relationship between ongoing task errors and PM performance emerged, such that making fewer errors on the sorting task was associated with better PM performance. Regarding output monitoring errors, children most frequently placed both occurrences of the same PM target in the first zoo. KEYWORDS: prospective memory, output monitoring, preschool children, Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to execute a planned action at the appropriate time (i.e., time-based PM) or in the appropriate situation (i.e., event-based PM) in the [...]

We examined the influence of prospective memory (PM) cue focality in a sample of preschool children. Prior investigations in older populations indicated that focal targets were associated with enhanced PM performance, perhaps through more automatic retrieval processes. Importantly, this influential variable has not been thoroughly explored in younger samples. Over three test sessions, preschool children completed a memory task where they were shown a series of animals. During retrieval, participants were shown all of the animals except for one, and they had to name the missing animal. While engaged in this task, participants in the focal PM condition were instructed to remove particular animals (e.g., spider) from the game if they saw them. In the nonfocal condition, participants were told to remove any animal that was entirely one color (e.g., black) if they saw them during the game. The results demonstrated no difference in PM remembering between focal and nonfocal conditions. These results suggest that the effects of focality may not be present at the beginning stages of PM development. The implications for PM retrieval processes also are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge of sequential relationships enables future events to be anticipated and processed efficiently. Research with the serial reaction time task (SRTT) has shown that sequence learning often occurs implicitly without effort or awareness. Here, the authors report 4 experiments that use a triplet-learning task (TLT) to investigate sequence learning in young and older adults. In the TLT, people respond only to the last target event in a series of discrete, 3-event sequences or triplets. Target predictability is manipulated by varying the triplet frequency (joint probability) and/or the statistical relationships (conditional probabilities) among events within the triplets. Results reveal that both groups learned, though older adults showed less learning of both joint and conditional probabilities. Young people used the statistical information in both cues, but older adults relied primarily on information in the 2nd cue alone. The authors conclude that the TLT complements and extends the SRTT and other tasks by offering flexibility in the kinds of sequential statistical regularities that may be studied as well as by controlling event timing and eliminating motor response sequencing. Keywords: implicit sequence learning, aging, implicit learning, serial reaction time task, statistical learning