Prolonged development of forced-choice recognition when targets are paired with non-corresponding lures

Previous research suggests that mnemonic discrimination (i.e., the ability to discriminate between previously encountered and novel stimuli even when they are highly similar) improves substantially during childhood. To further understand the development of mnemonic discrimination during childhood, the current study had 4-year-old children, 6-year-old children, and young adults complete the forced-choice Mnemonic Similarity Task (MST). The forced-choice MST offers a significant advantage in the context of developmental research because it is not sensitive to age-related differences in response criteria and includes three test formats that are theorized to be supported by different cognitive processes. A target (i.e., a previously encountered item) is paired with either a novel item (A-X), a corresponding lure (A-A'; i.e., an item mnemonically similar to the target), or a non-corresponding lure (A-B'; i.e., an item mnemonically similar to a different previously encoded item). We observed that 4-year-olds performed more poorly than 6-year-olds on the A-X and A-A' test formats, whereas both 4- and 6-year-olds performed more poorly than young adults on the A-B' test format. The MINERVA 2.2 computational model effectively accounted for these age-related differences. The model suggested that 4-year-olds have a lower learning rate (i.e., probability of encoding stimulus features) than 6-year-olds and young adults and that both 4- and 6-year-olds have greater encoding variability than young adults. These findings provide new insight into possible mechanisms underlying memory development during childhood and serve as the basis for multiple avenues of future research.