Distinct environmental cues trigger spontaneous recall of past events in 3‐ and 4‐year‐old children even after long delays.

Verbally reported long‐term memory for past events typically improves with age. However, such findings are based exclusively on studies, where children are directly asked to recall. The present study showed that when 3‐ (n = 113, 59 girls) and 4‐year‐olds (n = 113, 62 girls), predominantly White, were brought back to a distinct laboratory‐setting after either 1‐, 4.5‐, or 13‐weeks, children—regardless of age and delay—spontaneously recalled the distinct event experienced at their first visit (all Cohen's ds > 1.00). Meanwhile, the oldest children outperformed the youngest when being asked directly to retrieve the event (ηp2>.088). These findings suggest that spontaneous retrieval facilitated by distinct environmental cues provides a short‐cut to young children's event memories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]