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Abstract:
The purpose of the present experiment was to investigate the
developmental event-related potential (ERP) and behavioral aspects
of source compared to item recognition memory. During a study
phase, 9-10 year old children and adults viewed line drawings
outlined in red or green, and were asked to remember both the
pictures and their associated colors for 2 subsequent memory tasks.
In one memory task (item recognition), subjects had to make old/new
judgments. In the other (source memory), they pressed one button if
they thought the picture had been seen before in red (target), and
the other if the picture was new or had been seen before in green
(other). The children were somewhat less accurate than the young
adults during item recognition blocks, but this age difference was
even greater during source memory blocks. During both tasks, an
early old/new effect was observed, which had a more frontally
oriented scalp distribution in the ERPs of the adults. Following
this, a posteriorly-focused negativity was recorded only in the
ERPs of the adults and only in the source memory task. By contrast,
during this time period children showed positive activity. These
results suggest that frontal brain regions presumed to be involved
in retrieving source information may not be fully developed in
young children, consistent with their larger discrepancy between
item and source memory performance.
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