Linking "what" and "where" information: How the strength of object categories influences children's memory for object locations

Jodie M Plumert; Lucas J Franzen; Megan M Mathews; Christina Violante

doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2016.12.012

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Linking "what" and "where" information: How the strength of object categories influences children's memory for object locations

Journal article

Peer reviewed

Linking "what" and "where" information: How the strength of object categories influences children's memory for object locations

Jodie M Plumert, Lucas J Franzen, Megan M Mathews and Christina Violante

Journal of experimental child psychology, Vol.157, pp.95-110

05/2017

DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2016.12.012

PMID: 28131068

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Abstract

We conducted three experiments to examine how the degree of category relatedness among objects in a group affects the magnitude of spatial bias in memory for their locations. Four age groups-7-, 9-, and 11-year-old children and adults-learned the locations of 20 objects marked by dots on a touchscreen monitor. After learning the object locations, participants attempted to place the objects without the aid of the dots. We compared spatial bias at test (i.e., placing objects in the same quadrant closer together than they really were) when objects within the same quadrant were strongly related versus unrelated (Experiment 1) or weakly related versus unrelated (Experiment 2). The 9-year-olds, 11-year-olds, and adults exhibited significant spatial bias when groups of objects were composed of either strongly or weakly related exemplars, but the 7-year-olds exhibited significant spatial bias only when the objects were strongly related. A third experiment revealed that the 7-year-olds exhibited only marginally significant spatial bias when objects within the same quadrant were weakly related and we cued them about the category labels beforehand. The General Discussion focuses on developmental changes in bottom-up associative processes and top-down strategic processes in memory for object locations.

Adult

Age Factors

Attentional Bias - physiology

Child

Cues

Female

Humans

Learning

Male

Space Perception - physiology

Spatial Learning - physiology

Spatial Memory - physiology

Details

Title: Subtitle: Linking "what" and "where" information: How the strength of object categories influences children's memory for object locations
Creators: Jodie M Plumert - Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA. Electronic address: jodie-plumert@uiowa.edu
Lucas J Franzen - Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
Megan M Mathews - Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
Christina Violante - Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Journal of experimental child psychology, Vol.157, pp.95-110
DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2016.12.012
PMID: 28131068
NLM abbreviation: J Exp Child Psychol
ISSN: 0022-0965
eISSN: 1096-0457
Grant note: DOI: 10.13039/100000001, name: National Science Foundation, award: BCS-0343034
Language: English
Date published: 05/2017
Academic Unit: Psychological and Brain Sciences; Injury Prevention Research Center
Record Identifier: 9984213392102771

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