Despite limited memory capacity, children are exceptional learners. How might children engage in meaningful learning despite limited memory systems? Past research suggests that adults integrate category knowledge and noisy episodic traces to aid recall when episodic memory is noisy or incomplete (e.g. Hemmer & Steyvers, 2009a,b). We suspect children utilize a similar process but integrate category and episodic traces in recall to a different degree. Here we conduct two experiments to empirically assess children's color category knowledge (Study 1) and recall of target hue values (Study 2). In Study 1, although children's generated hue values appear to be noisier than adults, we found no significant difference between children and adult's generated color category means (prototypes), suggesting that preschool-aged children's color categories are well established. In Study 2, we found that children's (like adult's) free recall of target hue values regressed towards color category means. We implemented three probabilistic memory models: one that combines category knowledge and specific target information (Integrative), a category only (Noisy Prototype) model, and a target only (Noisy Target) model to computationally evaluate recall performance. Consistent with previous studies with older children (Duffy, Huttenlocher, & Crawford, 2006), quantitative fits of the models to aggregate group-level data provided strong support for the Integrative process. However, at the individual subject level, a greater proportion of preschoolers' recall was better fit by a Prototype only model. Our results provide evidence that the integration of category knowledge in episodic memory comes online early and strongly. Implications for how the greater reliance on category knowledge by preschoolers relative to adults might track with developmental shifts in relational episodic memory are discussed.

中文翻译：

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评估学龄前儿童的回忆错误：类别期望影响对颜色的情景记忆

尽管记忆力有限，但儿童是杰出的学习者。尽管记忆系统有限，儿童如何才能进行有意义的学习？过去的研究表明，当情景记忆嘈杂或不完整时，成年人会整合类别知识和嘈杂的情节痕迹来帮助回忆（例如 Hemmer & Steyvers, 2009a,b）。我们怀疑儿童使用类似的过程，但在不同程度上整合了回忆中的类别和情节痕迹。在这里，我们进行了两个实验，以实证评估儿童的颜色类别知识（研究 1）和目标色调值的回忆（研究 2）。在研究 1 中，虽然儿童生成的色调值似乎比成人更嘈杂，但我们发现儿童和成人生成的颜色类别均值（原型）之间没有显着差异，这表明学龄前儿童的 s 颜色类别已经确立。在研究 2 中，我们发现儿童（如成人）对目标色调值的自由回忆向颜色类别均值回归。我们实现了三种概率记忆模型：一种结合类别知识和特定目标信息（Integrative）、一种仅类别（Noisy Prototype）模型和一种仅用于计算评估召回性能的目标（Noisy Target）模型。与之前对年龄较大儿童的研究（Duffy、Huttenlocher 和 Crawford，2006 年）一致，模型的定量拟合以汇总组级数据为整合过程提供了强有力的支持。然而，在个体学科水平上，更大比例的学龄前儿童的回忆更适合仅原型模型。我们的研究结果提供了证据，即情景记忆中类别知识的整合早期并强烈地在线。讨论了学龄前儿童相对于成人对类别知识的更大依赖如何随着关系情景记忆的发展变化而变化的影响。