Emotional Focus on Other People:

Impact on Children’s Source Monitoring

Stacie Kovacs Jennifer Rosentrater

Nora Newcombe

Temple University

Acknowledgements

• Meredith Meyer• Shannon Pruden & Anthony Dick• Temple University Infant Lab• Children, parents, and the

preschool teachers and directors

Memory

Declarative

Nondeclarative

SemanticFacts

EpisodicEvents

SkillsMotorPerceptualCognitive

AdaptationLevel

PrimingPerceptualSemantic

Shifts in Judgmentand Preferences

DispositionsSimple ClassicalConditioning

OperantConditioning

NonassociativeHabituationSensitization

What Is the Relation of Episodic Memory to Autobiographical

Memory?

Semantic Episodic

Impersonal

Self-Related

Paris is the capital “Tree” was on theof France. free recall list.

That’s a picture of A picture of that faceAl Gore. was in this experiment.

I was born in NJ. My picnic last Sunday.

That’s a picture of my That’s a picture of the mother. guy I met at Joe’s party.

Development of Autobiographical Memory

• Earliest appearance– Date and describe earliest

memory 3 or 3.5 yr•E.g., Mullen (1994)

• Reaches adult levels– Know vs recollect 4.6 yr

•E.g., Bruce et al. (2000)

A Source Monitoring Framework

• Source refers to how, where or from whom one learned a fact

• Source also means context or background information– e.g., temporal or spatial

information• Source is not a “tag” in memory• Any factor that disrupts the quality

of encoding or retrieval will impair later source monitoring

Development of Source Monitoring

• Emerges around age 4• Reaches adult levels around 10 yrs• Various factors affect ability to make

source judgments (e.g., suggestibility, source similarity)

Emotional Focus and Source Monitoring

• Adults who rehearse the factual or perceptual aspects of an event identify source better than those who rehearse affective aspects (Hastroudi et al., 1994)

• Adults find it easier to identify the source of statements when adopt an Other-focus (Johnson et al., 1996)

Experiment 1

Aims:• Examine whether adopting an Other-

focus improve preschoolers’ source monitoring ability

• Examine the relationship between source monitoring and a developing theory of mind

Self-focus:“Do you feel the same way as my friend?”

Other-focus: “Tell me how my friend feels.”

“I really like going to Chuck E. Cheese.”

Source Memory TaskExp. 1

“I really don’t like to eat broccoli!”

Testing ProcedureExp. 1

• “Did you hear, ‘I really like going to Chuck E. Cheese.’ ?”

• If yes, “Did Billy say it, or did Ashley say it, or shake your head ‘no’ if nobody said it.”

Theory of Mind (ToM) TasksExp. 1

• False-belief tasks used to assess “other” theory of mind (Perner et al., 1987; Flavell et al., 1983)– E.g., Rock/Sponge task

• How-know tasks used to assess “self” theory of mind (Perner & Ruffman, 1995)– E.g., “Did I tell you or did you see

where the ball was hidden?”

Recognition ScoresExp. 1

00.1

0.20.3

0.40.5

0.60.70.8

0.9

4-year-olds

5-year-olds

SelfOther

Source Monitoring ScoresExp. 1

0.65

0.7

0.75

0.8

0.85

0.9

4-year-olds

5-year-olds

SelfOther

ToM Results

False-belief tasks•No age differences•Children who passed had better

recognition than children who failed•No effect on source monitoring scores

How-know tasks•5-year-olds answered more “how-

know” questions correctly than 4-year-olds

•No effect on recognition or source monitoring scores

ConclusionsExp. 1

• Adopting an Other-focus during encoding improves source monitoring, at least for 5-year-olds

• Self focus improves recognition• 4-year-olds may benefit from taking an

Other-focus if the speakers’ emotions are more salient

Experiment 2

Aims:• Examine the benefit of Other-focus

when the speakers are both seen and heard

• Examine whether adopting Other-focus improves SM when the speakers are similar

Source Memory TaskExp. 2

• Watch a video of two similar females make statements about various topics (e.g., “Hot dogs are so gross!”)

• Easier response alternatives

Testing ProcedureExp. 2

“Did Mandy, Elizabeth, or no one say, ‘Hot dogs are so gross!’?”

Recognition ScoresExp. 2

0

0.1

0.2

0.30.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

4-year-olds

5-year-olds

SelfOther

Source Monitoring ScoresExp. 2

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

4-year-olds

5-year-olds

SelfOther

ConclusionsExp. 2

• Adopting an Other-focus during encoding improves source monitoring when the sources are similar, at least for 5-year-olds

• There is a shift in source monitoring between 4 and 5 years with regard to emotional focus

Summary

• Other focus improves source monitoring for both similar and dissimilar sources, at least for 5-year-olds

• During the preschool years, children begin to bind individual features of an event to form a complex memory

• Examining the role of emotional focus is a fruitful direction in understanding the development of source monitoring