For adults, memories tend to fade with time. But a new study has shown that there are circumstances under which the opposite is true for small children: they can remember a piece of information better days later than they can on the day they first learned it.
While playing a video game that asked them to remember associations between objects, 4- and 5-year-olds who re-played the game after a two-day delay scored more than 20 percent higher than kids who re-played it later the same day.
"An implication is that kids can be smarter than we necessarily thought they could be," said Kevin Darby, a doctoral student in psychology at The Ohio State University and co-author of the study. "They can make complex associations, they just need more time to do it."
The study, which will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science, is the first to document two different but related cognitive phenomena simultaneously: so-called "extreme forgetting" -- when kids learn two similar things in rapid succession, and the second thing causes them to forget the first -- and delayed remembering -- when they can recall the previously forgotten information days later.
"Extreme forgetting." Finally, an explanation for why repeating instructions to children doesn't work.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2015, @10:31AM
30 years ago, some completely innocent folks spent time in jail while a ridiculous court case played out.
Some "mental health professionals" helped some kids "remember" things that never actually happened.
The McMartin preschool trial fiasco and False memory syndrome [wikipedia.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday September 24 2015, @04:55AM
That sordid affair was one of several that utterly destroyed my trust in the justice system.>/p>
This appears to be a very different thing though, where the kids play a video game where remembering relationships between objects leads to a better score and then play the game again later that day or a couple days later.
The McMartin fiasco was a case of so-called adults making it clear to the kids what they wanted to hear and the kids cooperating to please them. Several ( as adults) have said they never actually thought they remembered any of that stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2015, @11:34AM
I'm not sure "smarter" is the right word here.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ledow on Wednesday September 23 2015, @12:58PM
Sleep reinforces memory.
We know this. It isn't shocking. And I'm not sure the numbers really mean that much at all.
The brain having time to process the memories of the day, overnight, to form better connections is well-documented. Indeed, it may be the prime purpose of sleep entirely. Other animals don't need to sleep at all or can sleep half their brains at a time, so sleep is not essential to the brain or to life. It's there to convert otherwise useless downtime (can't hunt in the dark) into something that's more useful (forming long-term memories and spotting patterns missed when we were in a rush earlier), in the process giving us hallucinations (dreams).
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 23 2015, @01:46PM
I was looking for someplace to ask, "Doesn't everyone already know this?" I think your post is spot on.
My "study" habits in school worked that way. I'd read the book, and get it out of the way. If you asked me questions soon after reading the book, I may or may not have the answer. Give it some time to percolate, and sometimes a little skimming through the book after the first reading, I'd have any answer you cared to ask.
Teachers hated me for never bringing my books to school, much less to class.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday September 24 2015, @03:05AM
Maybe similar to why control system theory seems so much simpler to me a few years after taking the course.
Now, it seems so intuitive on how to control something and why the oscillation if any. What frequency to expect, and what to re-inject where to kill it off.
It was not all that obvious to me in the theory class, even though I could parrot back textbook equations and solve them to the expectations of the instructor.
It was some time before I felt I actually knew what I was doing, to the point of looking at a circuit and knowing what I had to do to it to make it work like I want it to.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 23 2015, @01:30PM
The reason is easy: They don't want to do what you tell them to do. If they did, they would have done it by about the third or fourth time you ask them. (This is from many years of experience working with kids.) Your job is to ask them to do things in a way that they actually want to or at least will tolerate doing it.
Adults, being more experienced in the world, have a different tack when they don't want to do what you tell them to do:
1. Agree to do it, because they know they really should and it would be rude not to.
2. Don't start doing it or even thinking about it until the deadline starts getting close.
3. Suddenly realize that they said they were going to do it, it still needs to be done, and they can't procrastinate any longer.
4. Call/email in a panic and try to weasel out of doing it, typically with profuse apologies and excuses about how busy they were and all the unexpected things that cropped up.
5. If that doesn't work, scramble to create a half-assed result that's kinda sorta vaguely like what you originally asked for.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2015, @02:40PM
You just described my job *sob*.... Hangs head in shame.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Francis on Wednesday September 23 2015, @03:25PM
No, the reason why repetition doesn't generally work is because if you have to repeat it, you probably weren't clear in the first place. Something that's not clear is not going to be remembered properly in most cases.
You can remember a lot more than you probably realize, it's just that it can be difficult to know that you've memorized it unless you test the knowledge.
I've had bosses in the past that would repeat the same information over and over and refuse to consider that the message might not have come across clearly any of those times. Those are bad bosses, but it's the same problem. For something to be remembered effectively, it needs to be understood. Or at least the message needs to be understood, even if they details aren't. Giving a list of gibberish words isn't going to be memorizable without special training, but giving a set of easily understood steps is something that's much easier to memorize for most people.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 23 2015, @04:35PM
If you've ever worked with kids, you know that's not true. Statements like "It's Thursday, so you need to take out the trash like you do every week." is perfectly clear, but will not elicit the response you want from your 13-year-old.
And in the adult version I rattled off, clarity is also frequently not an issue. "Have the report [we just spent the last 2 hours discussing] ready for me by 4:30 PM on Oct 12." is also pretty darn clear, but may or may not elicit the response you want either.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday September 23 2015, @04:45PM
That's completely different from what TFA is talking about.
Children don't generally forget in cases like that. The information is in their brains, it hasn't been forgotten. However, due to the small amount of working memory that children have, they may not have access to it at the point when adults want it done. Reminding children over and over again becomes the cue to the habit and in the absence of some other stimuli to trigger the habit, you get the apparent need to repeat the reminder on a weekly basis.
And now I remember why I hated being a kid so much. Most of the adults around me had unrealistic expectations an no clue how to handle things like this. One of the most important skills that parents should be teaching children is how to form habits.
It's a common mistake people have, there's not just one type of memory, it's why my mother is capable of remembering all sorts of things, but completely fail at remembering to leave the house on time. Or why my Dad can memorize all sorts of random trivia without any trouble, but fails miserably to remember what the consequences of his actions were previously.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Wednesday September 23 2015, @05:49PM
s perfectly clear, but will not elicit the response you want from your 13-year-old.
From TFA,
While playing a video game that asked them to remember associations between objects, 4- and 5-year-olds who re-played the game after a two-day delay scored more than 20 percent higher than kids who re-played it later the same day.
Bad comparison. 4-5 year olds process information differently from 13 year olds. Or even 10 year olds.
Anyway, this is not exactly new information. Sleep is important part of information processing and remembering. This study just shows it is even more important than in adults.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday September 24 2015, @02:26AM
The kid already knows Machiavellian concepts before ever studying them.
He already has the makings of a great leader.... or whatever it is the rest of us will obey these days.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]