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Developmental differences in memory reactivation relate to encoding and inference in the human brain

Nature Human Behaviour volume 6, pages 415–428 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Despite the fact that children can draw on their memories to make novel inferences, it is unknown whether they do so through the same neural mechanisms as adults. We measured memory reinstatement as participants aged 7–30 years learned new, related information. While adults brought memories to mind throughout learning, adolescents did so only transiently, and children not at all. Analysis of trial-wise variability in reactivation showed that discrepant neural mechanisms—and in particular, what we interpret as suppression of interfering memories during learning in early adolescence—are nevertheless beneficial for later inference at each developmental stage. These results suggest that while adults build integrated memories well-suited to informing inference directly, children and adolescents instead must rely on separate memories to be individually referenced at the time of inference decisions.

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Fig. 1: Experimental task.
Fig. 2: Task performance.
Fig. 3: Perception and memory reactivation decoding analyses.
Fig. 4: Memory reactivation decoding results.
Fig. 5: fMRI activation varies as a function of reactivation on preceding study repetition.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/hg6wf/)132.

Code availability

The custom code that supports the findings of this study is available on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/hg6wf/)132.

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Acknowledgements

We thank T. Tran for help with stimulus development and participant recruitment, and S. Ventura, N.-H. Hue and K. Nguyen for assistance with data collection and analysis. We also thank M. Mack, D. Zeithamova, N. Varga and K. Duncan for input on statistical analyses and helpful discussions. This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health under award numbers R01 MH100121 and R21 HD083785 (A.R.P.) and by the Canada Foundation for Innovation John R. Evans Leaders Fund (grant no. 36876; M.L.S.). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Margaret L. Schlichting

  2. Department of Psychology, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Katharine F. Guarino

  3. Center for Learning & Memory, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Hannah E. Roome & Alison R. Preston

  4. Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Hannah E. Roome & Alison R. Preston

  5. Department of Neuroscience, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Hannah E. Roome & Alison R. Preston

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  1. Margaret L. Schlichting
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  2. Katharine F. Guarino
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  3. Hannah E. Roome
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  4. Alison R. Preston
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Contributions

M.L.S. and A.R.P. conceptualized the study. M.L.S., K.F.G. and H.E.R. collected the data. M.L.S. and K.F.G. analysed the data. M.L.S. drafted the paper, and all authors were involved in revising and finalizing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Margaret L. Schlichting or Alison R. Preston.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Human Behaviour thanks Garvin Brod, Shaozheng Qin and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.

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Schlichting, M.L., Guarino, K.F., Roome, H.E. et al. Developmental differences in memory reactivation relate to encoding and inference in the human brain. Nat Hum Behav 6, 415–428 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01206-5

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