PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Ability to remember memories' origin not fully developed in youths

2011-08-31
(Press-News.org) During childhood and adolescence, children develop the ability to remember not only past events but the origin of those memories. For example, someone may remember meeting a particular person and the context in which he or she met that person. New research from Germany has found that the ability to remember the origin of memories is a relatively long process that matures during adolescence but isn't fully developed until adulthood.

The study, by researchers at Saarland University, appears in the journal Child Development. Its findings have implications for the legal arena in terms of the reliability of children's testimony.

Researchers studied 18 children (ages 7-8), 20 adolescents (ages 13-14), and 20 young adults (ages 20-29), asking them to complete two parts of a memory task. In the first part, participants were shown pictures on a computer screen and asked to judge how many times the pictures were repeated by pressing the "new" button for first-time presentations and the "old" button for repetitions.

In the second part, which occurred after a 10-minute break, participants were told that they'd be presented with pictures, some of which they'd seen in the first part and some of which were new. They were told to judge each item solely according to its repetition status; that is, items repeated from the first part and presented for the first time in the second part had to be judged as "new." When these items were repeated within the second part, they had to be judged as "old." Researchers also monitored participants' brain responses throughout the two-part task by using an electroencephalogram (EEG) cap.

In this way, the study allowed researchers to analyze developmental changes in how the origins of memory are recalled (the second part of the task) independently from age differences in memories for events (the first part). In particular, the researchers measured how the youths retrieved and evaluated things remembered.

The study found few age differences in the retrieval processes involved in recognizing repeated pictures (the first part of the task), such that the brain responses of children of early elementary age were comparable to those of adolescents and adults. When it came to assessing the origins of memory, however, it found that children were immature in this area. Moreover, while adolescents and adults showed similarities, only adults showed maturity in this area. The findings suggest that the brain structures that support the recall of memory sources in children and adolescents continuously refine and mature with age.

"The study has important implications for people who take an interest in children's and adolescents' abilities to distinguish between multiple sources of memories," according to the researchers. "Parents, teachers, and those who work in the legal system should be aware that adolescents' memories are still likely to be distorted by distracting memories, for example by suggestions when giving testimony."

INFORMATION:

The study was supported by the German Research Foundation.

END



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Secure attachment to moms helps irritable babies interact with others

2011-08-31
Children with difficult temperaments are often the most affected by the quality of their relationships with their caregivers. New research suggests that highly irritable children who have secure attachments to their mothers are more likely to get along well with others than those who aren't securely attached. These findings, from researchers at the University of Maryland, are published in the journal Child Development. Researchers followed 84 infants from birth to age 2. About a third were characterized as highly irritable, while two-thirds were characterized as moderately ...

Mother-son ties change over time, influence teen boys' behavior

2011-08-31
Relationships between mothers and their sons change during childhood and adolescence. However, not all relationships change in the same way, and how the relationships change may affect boys' behavior when they become teens. Those are the findings of a new longitudinal study of low-income families by researchers at Wayne State University, Oklahoma State University, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Montreal, and the University of Oregon. The study appears in the journal Child Development. The researchers looked at 265 mother-son pairs from low-income families ...

Pardee Homes Offers Reduced Prices at Highlands Village; New Carmel Valley Townhomes From the Mid-$400,000s

Pardee Homes Offers Reduced Prices at Highlands Village; New Carmel Valley Townhomes From the Mid-$400,000s
2011-08-31
Pardee Homes has announced that they have reduced prices on move-in ready townhomes at Highlands Village at Carmel Country Highlands. The builder is offering this special for a limited time on their popular Plan 1 and Plan 1X models, and will also include $10,000 towards HOA dues or closing costs. "This is great time to buy and an exceptional opportunity to live the Carmel Valley lifestyle without the typical Carmel Valley price," said Rachel Collins, director of sales for Pardee Homes. "Coastal-close Highlands Village offers affordability, location, lifestyle ...

Simple blood test at high street opticians could help to diagnose diabetes

2011-08-31
A simple finger prick test during routine eye examinations at high street opticians could help to identify millions of people with previously undiagnosed Type 2 diabetes, according to new research. The researchers suggest earlier diagnosis could set people on the road to better management of the disease, which is the leading cause of blindness in the working age population, and that this could ultimately result in cost-savings for the NHS. The Durham University study suggests that screening for the condition in unconventional settings, such as opticians, chiropodists ...

Ghostwriting remains a fundamental problem in the medical literature

2011-08-31
An editorial this week in PLoS Medicine concludes that in the two years since extensive ghostwriting by pharmaceutical giant Wyeth to promote its hormone drug Prempro was exposed through litigation intervention by PLoS Medicine and The New York Times, medical ghostwriting remains a prevalent problem with few concrete solutions in sight. This week also sees the launch of the PLoS Ghostwriting Collection, which documents everything published across the PLoS journals on the topic. Among these are three new articles published earlier this month in PLoS Medicine that provide ...

New Stanford method reveals parts of bacterium genome essential to life

2011-08-31
STANFORD, Calif. — A team at the Stanford University School of Medicine has cataloged, down to the letter, exactly what parts of the genetic code are essential for survival in one bacterial species, Caulobacter crescentus. They found that 12 percent of the bacteria's genetic material is essential for survival under laboratory conditions. The essential elements included not only protein-coding genes, but also regulatory DNA and, intriguingly, other small DNA segments of unknown function. The other 88 percent of the genome could be disrupted without harming the bacteria's ...

Death rates in newborns remain shockingly high in Africa and India

2011-08-31
Neonatal mortality—deaths in newborns, aged 3 weeks and under— has declined in all regions of the world over the past two decades but in 2009, more than half of all neonatal deaths occurred in five countries—India, Nigeria, Pakistan, China, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Furthermore, over the past 20 years, more than 4% of all babies born live in India died during the first month of life. These shocking findings come from a comprehensive and detailed analysis led by Mikkel Z Oestergaard, from the World Health Organization and partners published in this week's ...

Mobile phone data help track populations during disasters

2011-08-31
Mobile phone positioning data can be used to monitor population movements during disasters and outbreaks, according to a study published in this week's PLoS Medicine. The study, conducted by Linus Bengtsson and colleagues from the Karolinska Institute, Sweden and Columbia University, USA, finds that reports on the location of populations affected and in need of assistance can be generated within hours of receiving data. Population movements after disasters make it difficult to deliver essential relief assistance to the right places and at the right scale. In this geospatial ...

Rural areas at higher risk of dengue fever than cities

2011-08-31
In dengue-endemic areas such as South-East Asia, in contrast to conventional thinking, rural areas rather than cities may bear the highest burden of dengue fever—a viral infection that causes sudden high fever, severe headache, and muscle and joint pains, and can lead to a life-threatening condition, dengue hemorrhagic fever. In a study led by Wolf-Peter Schmidt from the Nagasaki Institute of Tropical Medicine, Japan, and published in this week's PLoS Medicine, the authors analysed a population in Kanh-Hoa Province in south-central Vietnam (~350,000 people) that was affected ...

Health systems research needs overhaul

2011-08-31
In the conclusion to a three-part series of articles addressing the current challenges and opportunities for the development of Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR), Sara Bennett of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore USA and colleagues lay out an agenda for action to help build the field: 1) local actors, including policy-makers and researchers, must have a greater say in determining the nature of HPSR conducted; 2) a better shared understanding of theoretical frames and methodological approaches for HPSR, including journals, methods training, ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Multi-resistance in bacteria predicted by AI model

Tinker Tots: A citizen science project to explore ethical dilemmas in embryo selection

Sensing sickness

Cost to build multifamily housing in California more than twice as high as in Texas

Program takes aim at drinking, unsafe sex, and sexual assault on college campuses

Inability to pay for healthcare reaches record high in U.S.

Science ‘storytelling’ urgently needed amid climate and biodiversity crisis

KAIST Develops Retinal Therapy to Restore Lost Vision​

Adipocyte-hepatocyte signaling mechanism uncovered in endoplasmic reticulum stress response

Mammals were adapting from life in the trees to living on the ground before dinosaur-killing asteroid

Low LDL cholesterol levels linked to reduced risk of dementia

Thickening of the eye’s retina associated with greater risk and severity of postoperative delirium in older patients

Almost one in ten people surveyed report having been harmed by the NHS in the last three years

Enhancing light control with complex frequency excitations

New research finds novel drug target for acute myeloid leukemia, bringing hope for cancer patients

New insight into factors associated with a common disease among dogs and humans

Illuminating single atoms for sustainable propylene production

New study finds Rocky Mountain snow contamination

Study examines lactation in critically ill patients

UVA Engineering Dean Jennifer West earns AIMBE’s 2025 Pierre Galletti Award

Doubling down on metasurfaces

New Cedars-Sinai study shows how specialized diet can improve gut disorders

Making moves and hitting the breaks: Owl journeys surprise researchers in western Montana

PKU Scientists simulate the origin and evolution of the North Atlantic Oscillation

ICRAFT breakthrough: Unlocking A20’s dual role in cancer immunotherapy

How VR technology is changing the game for Alzheimer’s disease

A borrowed bacterial gene allowed some marine diatoms to live on a seaweed diet

Balance between two competing nerve proteins deters symptoms of autism in mice

Use of antifungals in agriculture may increase resistance in an infectious yeast

Awareness grows of cancer risk from alcohol consumption, survey finds

[Press-News.org] Ability to remember memories' origin not fully developed in youths