Academic achievement involves complex processes that are not fully understood. That being said, the connection between working memory and academic achievement is well developed and emphasized in the literature. However considering the complex nature of academic achievement, other processes are likely involved. The current study examined the contributions of recollection, familiarity, working memory, and verbal IQ longitudinally in children at ages 6 and then 9. Recollection, but not familiarity, contributed to measures of both reading and math at age 6, but not 9. Path models suggested that the direct and indirect effects of working and episodic memory to academic achievement change from age 6 to 9. Furthermore, this study examined the contributions of the neural correlates of recollection and working memory to measures of academic achievement at ages 6 and 9. The neural correlates of working memory and recollection did not contribute to academic achievement, but additional research is needed to draw concrete conclusions. Overall, the results suggest that episodic memory should be considered in addition to working memory when examining academic achievement. / Ph. D. / Academic achievement incorporates many different abilities. I examined how different memory systems impact math and reading achievement at ages 6 and 9 years. I specifically examined working memory, recollection, and familiarity. Working memory involves information that is currently within one’s awareness. Recollection is a vivid re-experiencing of an event or events. Familiarity is a general sense that something has been seen or heard previously. The results suggest that working memory and recollection, but not familiarity, primarily impact math and reading achievement. Furthermore, different patterns emerged for the relation between memory and math achievement when compared to reading achievement, but were dependent on the child’s age. The results suggest that older children rely on different memory systems for math when compared to reading, while younger children use the same memory systems for math and reading. We further examined the neural (brain) regions related to memory and academic achievement. Additional research is needed to interpret and expand on the neural results found. Overall, the results provide information on how children learn and develop math and reading skills.

Positive, but distal consequences of reducing alcohol use among at-risk users may have little impact on behavior due to temporal discounting (Mazur, 1987), in which delayed rewards are devalued relative to more proximal rewards, even if such distal rewards actually provide considerably more value. Delay discounting may be manipulated using a variety of means, one of which involves utilizing prospective thinking about future autobiographical events and is termed Episodic Future Thinking (Atance and ONeill, 2001). Episodic future thinking (EFT) has been demonstrated in previous studies to be effective in reducing delay discounting relative to a variety of control conditions (Benoit, Gilbert, and Burgess, 2011; Daniel, Stanton, and Epstein, 2013a, 2013b; Lin and Epstein, 2014; Peters and Büchel, 2010) and recently among substance-abusing populations (Snider, LaConte, and Bickel, 2016; Stein et al., 2016). The present study examined EFT in a novel sample of at-risk alcohol users. Participants were randomized to EFT, episodic past thinking (EPT), or a control condition in which non-autobiographical events were recalled (CET). Immediately following intervention, results demonstrated significantly less discounting in EFT and EPT, relative to CET. At follow-up, EFT demonstrated significantly less temporal discounting and alcohol use, when compared to both EPT and CET. No differences among conditions in alcohol demand or alcohol use intentions were observed. The present study contributes a number of novel findings to the literature, most notably that engaging in EFT predicts reductions in alcohol use prospectively and that reductions in delay discounting associated with EFT persist at least a week later, without any additional intervention. Such findings suggest that EFT manipulations influence the valuation of future rewards. Additionally, findings support EFT as a useful supplement to existing empirically-supported treatments or a component of novel substance use disorder treatments. / Ph. D. / Drug and alcohol addiction is characterized by seemingly illogical decisions to forgo important benefits associated with abstinence or moderated use (e.g., maintaining employment) in favor of the immediate gratification of intoxication. The tendency to favor instant gratification and devalue delayed rewards explains impulsive decision making typical of substance use disorders and other impulse control problems. The present study evaluated whether vividly imagining positive future events reduced this tendency toward instant gratification. College students at high risk for an alcohol use disorder participated in the study. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: one in which they were asked to imagine positive events they anticipated in the future, one in which they were asked to imagine positive events from their past, and one in which they were asked to recall events described in a provided travel blog. Immediately after imagining the events, participants in both the past and future conditions were less oriented towards instant gratification than participants who were asked to recall events from a travel blog. When measured a week later, participants in the future condition reported less devaluation of future rewards, as well as less alcohol use, than participants in the other two groups. Overall, the results of the study provide evidence that vividly imagining positive future events reduces impulsivity among at-risk college student drinkers. As such, imagining future events may be an effective component of future treatment efforts for substance use disorders and other impulse control problems.

Comparative research on event memory has typically focused on the binding of spatial and temporal information in memory, but much less is known about how animals remember information about the source of their memories (i.e., whether the event is something they performed themselves or whether they observed it). The purpose of the present study was to examine how rhesus monkeys (n = 8) and 3- to 4- year-old children (n = 20) remember this information along with other relevant event features (object identity, spatial location, temporal properties and contextual features) in working memory. In Experiment 1, rhesus monkeys completed five different delayed matching-to-sample tasks to assess independent encoding of these five event components. In Experiment 2, the monkeys either performed or observed an event and then had to respond to a randomly selected pair of memory tests used in the previous experiment. In Experiment 3, children were presented with the same memory task, but were given a brief demonstration to learn how to perform the task. Both children and monkeys responded to these tests using photos and shapes (for the identity and spatial tests) and icons (for the temporal, agency and context tests). The monkeys demonstrated significantly above-chance performance on the identity, spatial, temporal and agency tasks. The children were above chance on the one component the monkeys had difficulty with (context), but conversely demonstrated difficulty on the temporal memory test. There was evidence of feature integration in both monkeys and children. Specifically, the children were significantly more likely to respond correctly to the second memory test if they had also been correct on the first memory test. Two of five rhesus monkeys also showed this effect, indicating that for these individuals, the features were integrated in working memory. Implications of this research are discussed in relation to self-awareness and episodic memory research in children and nonhuman species.

Comparative research on event memory has typically focused on the binding of spatial and temporal information in memory, but much less is known about how animals remember information about the source of their memories (i.e., whether the event is something they performed themselves or whether they observed it). The purpose of the present study was to examine how rhesus monkeys (n = 8) and 3- to 4- year-old children (n = 20) remember this information along with other relevant event features (object identity, spatial location, temporal properties and contextual features) in working memory. In Experiment 1, rhesus monkeys completed five different delayed matching-to-sample tasks to assess independent encoding of these five event components. In Experiment 2, the monkeys either performed or observed an event and then had to respond to a randomly selected pair of memory tests used in the previous experiment. In Experiment 3, children were presented with the same memory task, but were given a brief demonstration to learn how to perform the task. Both children and monkeys responded to these tests using photos and shapes (for the identity and spatial tests) and icons (for the temporal, agency and context tests). The monkeys demonstrated significantly above-chance performance on the identity, spatial, temporal and agency tasks. The children were above chance on the one component the monkeys had difficulty with (context), but conversely demonstrated difficulty on the temporal memory test. There was evidence of feature integration in both monkeys and children. Specifically, the children were significantly more likely to respond correctly to the second memory test if they had also been correct on the first memory test. Two of five rhesus monkeys also showed this effect, indicating that for these individuals, the features were integrated in working memory. Implications of this research are discussed in relation to self-awareness and episodic memory research in children and nonhuman species.

The Diploma thesis is concerned with the human episodic-like memory and its changes during the course of healthy ageing. Episodic memory represents a memory of specific events and their spatiotemporal relations, involving conscious retrieval and mental time travel. As a testable analogy in animals, a concept of episodic-like memory has been suggested and defined as a memory of spatiotemporal location of a certain event in the past ("what-where-when"). Firstly, we focused on a methodological comparison of standard psychological tests of episodic memory and a novel non-verbal computer-based Episodic-Like Memory Test (EMT) with several variants of varying difficulty, capable of discerning the memory for pictures, their sequence and position (Vlček et al., 2009). The second goal of our study was to demonstrate the applicability of the concept of episodic-like memory ("what- where-when") as a model in the testing of human episodic memory. Compared with other tests of episodic memory, EMT test does not depend on the verbalization of content. Contrasting the results obtained from EMT and other standard tests was, therefore, of interest. The results from the EMT test were compared across three age cohorts (N = 58; young, middle-aged, aged) of healthy volunteers. In the spatial domain of episodic-like...

Episodic memory enables us to remember and recall life events from the past. Episodic memory is a specific type of long-term declarative memory, which undergoes changes in ontogeny. To examinate of episodic memory, "episodic-like memory model", was developed. This model focuses on three basic components of episodic memory: "What happened", "Where did it happen" and "When did it happen". The aim of this diploma thesis is to develop and to validate of particular tests of episodic memory with consideration for their feasibility for preschool children. In order to study episodic memory we used an "episodic-like memory model" and experiments which focused on: children's verbal ability, differentiation of two perspectives during remembering of events and timing memories on an autobiographical axis. We aimed to inspect the effect of age on performance in these tests, possible links between performance in these experiments and the effect of level and the three components of episodic memory on number of errors made. In our dataset we found a significant effect of the age of children in Sentence repetition test and in test of Object collection in the virtual house, in the same test we found a effect of the level on number of errors. We also found a significant correlation between correct responses in verbal...

Adults can mentally relive experiences from their past and anticipate possible future events, a process called mental time travel (MTT). Recently, several theorists have argued that the ability to mentally travel through time may not emerge until 3- to 5-years of age. This proposal is based on evidence from a wide range of research, including investigations into children’s recall, planning and differentiation of the times of events in the past and the future. However, as yet there has been no dedicated effort to find out how and when MTT develops. The current series of studies brought together a wide range of resources with the aim of designing a series of novel paradigms to measure aspects of MTT development between 3- and 5-years of age. The first of these novel approaches asked children to report events that occurred to them “yesterday” and would occur to them “tomorrow”, revealing that by 4- to 5-years of age most children could accurately do so. Another series of studies examined children’s ability to anticipate a different, future situation, finding that only by 4- to 5-years did children’s behaviour reflect differences in an anticipated future environment. Subsequent studies focusing on children’s discrimination of past and future also suggested that by 4- to 5-years children could distinguish the different causal impact of past and future events on the present. Another task revealed that during the preschool years children become better at differentiating the times of events from throughout their own lifespan. These new data provide support for the claim that the ability to mentally travel into one’s own past and future emerges during the preschool years. This thesis describes the first directed investigation into the development of MTT as a whole, bringing together much of the empirical and theoretical literature for the first time. The tasks designed are new approaches to investigating MTT and represent a starting point for future research. This thesis also introduces and discusses theories for the development of MTT, aiming to stimulate discussion not just of when it emerges, but how, and what processes may underlie the transition.

Adults can mentally relive experiences from their past and anticipate possible future events, a process called mental time travel (MTT). Recently, several theorists have argued that the ability to mentally travel through time may not emerge until 3- to 5-years of age. This proposal is based on evidence from a wide range of research, including investigations into children’s recall, planning and differentiation of the times of events in the past and the future. However, as yet there has been no dedicated effort to find out how and when MTT develops. The current series of studies brought together a wide range of resources with the aim of designing a series of novel paradigms to measure aspects of MTT development between 3- and 5-years of age. The first of these novel approaches asked children to report events that occurred to them “yesterday” and would occur to them “tomorrow”, revealing that by 4- to 5-years of age most children could accurately do so. Another series of studies examined children’s ability to anticipate a different, future situation, finding that only by 4- to 5-years did children’s behaviour reflect differences in an anticipated future environment. Subsequent studies focusing on children’s discrimination of past and future also suggested that by 4- to 5-years children could distinguish the different causal impact of past and future events on the present. Another task revealed that during the preschool years children become better at differentiating the times of events from throughout their own lifespan. These new data provide support for the claim that the ability to mentally travel into one’s own past and future emerges during the preschool years. This thesis describes the first directed investigation into the development of MTT as a whole, bringing together much of the empirical and theoretical literature for the first time. The tasks designed are new approaches to investigating MTT and represent a starting point for future research. This thesis also introduces and discusses theories for the development of MTT, aiming to stimulate discussion not just of when it emerges, but how, and what processes may underlie the transition.

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Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Psychological Sciences / Richard Jackson Harris / In recent years, Baddeley (2010) has added a new component, the episodic buffer, to his Working Memory (WM) model. The episodic buffer binds information from long-term memory (LTM) to the central executive but has been researched very little, especially with respect to its use with a second language. In fact, Juffs and Harrington (2011) stated, “To date there has been no research on the possible role of the episodic buffer in L2 learning and use” (p. 140). One goal of this study was to do just that. Domain knowledge (DK) in baseball (Experiment 1) and English proficiency levels (Experiment 2) were used as proxies for difficulty level to study how inference processing under different conditions of domain knowledge and cognitive load in native (L1) and non-native (L2) English readers contribute to understanding the episodic buffer. In Experiment 1, 67 participants varying in domain knowledge about baseball read stories related to baseball with or without a concurrent cognitive load task of responding to tones while reading; they then answered comprehension questions of varying degrees of inferential difficulty. In Experiment 2, three groups varying in English reading proficiency, split into groups based on their lexical decision task scores (72 native, 40 intermediate, 40 beginner readers) read general stories with or without cognitive load and answered comprehension questions requiring varying degrees of inferential difficulty. Accuracy and Reaction Time (RT) were differentially affected by working memory (OSpan), cognitive load, and inferential complexity. In Experiment 1, greater DK explained variance in effectiveness (accuracy) and efficiency (RT) as inferential complexity increased. In Experiment 2 OSpan was needed even at lower levels of inferential complexity for beginning readers. Surprisingly, for both experiments, participants responded faster under cognitive load conditions, although not at the expense of accuracy. This suggests that the episodic buffer is important for different levels of DK and proficiency, especially as the task becomes more difficult. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.