Caregiver-child reminiscing and recounting across contexts.

• Caregivers use a unique approach to talk about unshared events relative to shared events. • Caregivers say less when discussing an unshared event with children. • Caregivers modify past talk somewhat based on whether they are focused on gather facts or having fun. • Individual characteristics and caregivers' conversation styles predict children's recall. Caregiver-child dyads discuss unshared experiences on a daily basis. Yet, most research explores how dyads discuss shared experiences, with limited examination of how caregivers elicit information when discussing unshared experiences. The present study examined how caregivers modify their narrative style across the two conversation types, while also considering conversation goal and child recall. Eighty-six dyads discussed a shared past experience and unshared play activity experienced by the child. Caregivers were randomly assigned to discuss the play activity with the goal of gathering facts or having fun. Caregivers varied their conversation style when discussing the unshared event relative to the shared event and modified their conversation style somewhat depending on the assigned conversation goal. Caregivers' conversation styles and child individual characteristics predicted children's provision of correct information about the activity. Results preliminarily suggest caregivers use a unique approach to talk about unshared relative to shared events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]