Tracy Riggins - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Tracy Riggins

Origins and Development of RecollectionPerspectives from Psychology and Neuroscience, 2012

ABSTRACT This chapter analyzes evidence of the development of memory in infancy and early childho... more ABSTRACT This chapter analyzes evidence of the development of memory in infancy and early childhood. In doing so, it addresses pressing questions about whether and when recollection is present in infancy, and reflects on the methodological approaches and the conclusions that these approaches afford about early recollection. Adhering to the definition of recollection as the capacity to remember events in their spatiotemporal context, it provides a careful examination of recent research differentiating among spatial, temporal, and other attributes of episodic recollection.

Developmental Psychology, 2014

The present study used a cohort-sequential design to examine developmental changes in children&am... more The present study used a cohort-sequential design to examine developmental changes in children's ability to bind items in memory during early and middle childhood. Three cohorts of children (aged 4, 6, or 8 years) were followed longitudinally for 3 years. Each year, children completed a source memory paradigm assessing memory for items and binding. Results suggest linear increases in memory for individual items (facts or sources) between 4 and 10 years of age but that memory for correct fact/source combinations (indicative of binding) showed accelerated rates of change between 5 and 7 years. Taken together, these results suggest differences exist in developmental trajectories between the development of memory processes underlying successful item memory and processes underlying binding. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to longitudinal research examining autobiographical memory.

• Overall, children performed well on the task remembering a large percentage of items and their ... more • Overall, children performed well on the task remembering a large percentage of items and their associated details as well as correctly rejecting new items.

Background: Unusual sensory-related behaviors, particularly in response to sound and touch, are a... more Background: Unusual sensory-related behaviors, particularly in response to sound and touch, are associated with the phenotype of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, not all children diagnosed with autism exhibit this behavioral profile, and among those who do there may be sensitivity to relatively weak stimulation or tolerance of strong sensory input. Objectives: In this study, part of a larger, on-going project to identify autism subphenotypes (The Autism Phenome Project), we sought to identify electrophysiological markers of sensory processing subphenotypes. Our approach was to examine the electrocortical response amplitude recorded to stimuli of increasing loudness. A critical feature of this approach was the development of procedures that yielded robust data from individual very young participants with ASD. Methods: 60-channel event-related potentials (ERPs) were elicited by randomly presented 50, 60, 70, and 80 dB 50 ms complex tones via headphones from 30 typically devel...

Child Development, 2015

Age-related differences in behavioral and electrophysiological indices of memory were examined in... more Age-related differences in behavioral and electrophysiological indices of memory were examined in 3- to 6-year-old children (N = 76). Behaviorally, no differences were observed in children's ability to identify old items; however, 3-year-old children were less accurate in correctly rejecting new items, and 3- and 4-year-old children recalled fewer contextual details compared to 5- and 6-year-old children. Age-related differences in electrophysiological measures (800-1,000 ms after stimulus onset) were observed both to items recalled with contextual details, which increased between 3 and 4 years, and items recalled without contextual details, which were greatest in 5-year-old children, even after adjusting for global age-related differences. These findings, interpreted within a dual-process framework, may suggest changes in both recollection and familiarity processes during early childhood.

Developmental Science, 2013

The aim of the present study was to investigate developmental changes in encoding processes betwe... more The aim of the present study was to investigate developmental changes in encoding processes between 6-year-old children and adults using event-related potentials (ERPs). Although episodic memory ('EM') effects have been reported in both children and adults at retrieval and subsequent memory effects have been established in adults, no previous ERP studies have examined subsequent memory effects in children. This represents a critical gap in the literature because encoding processes, and changes in neural correlates supporting encoding, partially account for age-related improvements in children's memory performance. Results revealed that subsequent memory effects differed between children and adults temporally, directionally, and topographically. These findings lend support to the hypothesis that encoding processes and their neural correlates are an important source of change in memory development. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at http://youtu.be/sH83_qVimgc.

Child development, 2015

Episodic memory shows striking improvement during early childhood. However, neural contributions ... more Episodic memory shows striking improvement during early childhood. However, neural contributions to these behavioral changes are not well understood. This study examined associations between episodic memory and volume of subregions (head, body, and tail) of the hippocampus-a structure known to support episodic memory in school-aged children and adults-during early childhood (n = 45). Results revealed significant positive relations between episodic memory and volume of the hippocampal head in both the left and right hemispheres for 6- but not 4-year-old children, suggesting brain-behavior relations vary across development. These findings add new information regarding neural mechanisms of change in memory development during early childhood and suggest that developmental differences in hippocampal subregions may contribute to age-related differences in episodic memory ability.

Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 2015

The ability to recall contextual details associated with an event begins to develop in the first ... more The ability to recall contextual details associated with an event begins to develop in the first year of life, yet adult levels of recall are not reached until early adolescence. Dual-process models of memory suggest that the distinct retrieval process that supports the recall of such contextual information is recollection. In the present investigation, we used both behavioral and electrophysiological measures to assess the development of memory for contextual details, as indexed by memory for temporal order, in early childhood. Results revealed age-related improvements in memory for temporal order despite similar levels of memory for the individual items themselves. Furthermore, this pattern of recall was associated with specific components in the electrophysiological response. Consistent with electrophysiological research in adults, distributed, positive-going activity late in the waveform was associated with increases in recall of contextual details and the development of recollective processes.

Bold indicates significant difference Current Characteristics: Age at scan (years) 14.3, (1.0) 13... more Bold indicates significant difference Current Characteristics: Age at scan (years) 14.3, (1.0) 13.5, (1.1) F(1,33) = 6.20, p = .02 Gender 10 male, 10 female 5 male, 10 female Chi square(1)= 0.97, p=.32 Participant's IQ (WASI) 91.25, (11.58) 94.2, (12.27) F(1,33) = 0.53, p=.47 Currently in non-maternal care 50% 0% Chi square(1)= 10.5, p=.001 Current caregiver IQ (WASI) 84.6, (13.60) 89.4, (13.42) F(1,33) = 1.11, p=.30 Birth Characteristics: Birthweight (z score) -.68 (.67) -.17 (1.13)* F(1,32) = 2.73, p=.11 Birth head circumference (z score) -.66 (.86) -.45 (.94)* F(1,32) = 0.45, p=.51 Birth height (z score) -.49 (1.13) .37 (.74)* F(1,32) = 6.21, p=.02 Mothers age at birth (years) 27.05 (4.64) 23.6 (4.99) F(1,33) = 4.44, p=.04 Maternal education at birth (years) 10.90 (1.33) 11.67 (.82) F(1,33) = 3.85, p=.058 Apgar scores (1min) range 6-9, mode = 8 range 6-9, mode = 8* Mann-Whitney U = 113.5, p=.49 Apgar scores (5min) range 8-10, mode = 9 range 8-10, mode = 9* Mann-Whitney U = 12...

Frontiers in Psychology, 2015

Previous research has documented an association between executive functioning (EF) and memory for... more Previous research has documented an association between executive functioning (EF) and memory for bound details. However, it is unknown if this relation varies as a function of the type of bound information (i.e., unitized versus non-unitized) and whether this association changes as a function of age during childhood, when both EF and memory undergo rapid development. The current study sought to address these gaps by examining whether relations between parent-reported EF differed for unitized versus non-unitized memory representations and if these relations differed between children who were 4, 6, or 8 years of age. Results revealed that EF was selectively associated with non-unitized associative memory in 8-year-old children; no significant relations between EF and either memory condition were evident in 4- or 6-year-olds. These results suggest relations between EF and memory may be specific to non-unitized representations and that this association may emerge across childhood as both EF and memory abilities develop.

Advances in child development and behavior, 2010

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2010

faces in a broader set of categories than older infants, with older infants being worse at discri... more faces in a broader set of categories than older infants, with older infants being worse at discriminating between faces belonging to infrequently encountered categories. Perceptual narrowing results demonstrate that experience shapes selectivity during infancy, leading to profound perceptual consequences. The fi rst year of life (specifi cally the 6-to 9-month age range) is thus a critically important time period for studying how distinctions are made between faces and non-face control stimuli, as well as between distinct categories of faces defi ned at varying levels of granularity. Our aim in the present study was to characterize how distinct types of face selectivity may interact during this period of development. This is distinct from any effort to characterize true perceptual narrowing, but shares the same broad goal of perceptual narrowing research insofar as we wish to more fully understand the developmental timecourse of differential processing for various kinds of faces and face-like stimuli. Specifi cally, we ask how differential processing of faces at a sub-ordinate level (personally familiar vs. unfamiliar face) may lead to differential processing at a basic level (face vs. inverted face).

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2014

We investigated the role of the amygdala in mental state inference in a sample of adults and in a... more We investigated the role of the amygdala in mental state inference in a sample of adults and in a sample of children aged 4 and 6 years. This period in early childhood represents a time when mentalizing abilities undergo dramatic changes. Both children and adults inferred mental states from pictures of others' eyes, and children also inferred the mental states of others from stories (e.g., a false belief task). We also collected structural MRI data from these participants, to determine whether larger amygdala volumes (controlling for age and total gray matter volume) were related to better face-based and story-based mentalizing. For children, larger amygdala volumes were related to better face-based, but not story-based, mentalizing. In contrast, in adults, amygdala volume was not related to face-based mentalizing. We next divided the face-based items into two subscales: cognitive (e.g., thinking, not believing) versus affective (e.g., friendly, kind) items. For children, performance on cognitive items was positively correlated with amygdala volume, but for adults, only performance on affective items was positively correlated with amygdala volume. These results indicate that the amygdala's role in mentalizing may be specific to face-based tasks and that the nature of its involvement may change over development.

PEDIATRICS, 2010

CONTEXT-Studies through 6 years have shown no long-term direct effects of prenatal cocaine exposu... more CONTEXT-Studies through 6 years have shown no long-term direct effects of prenatal cocaine exposure (PCE) on children's physical growth, developmental test scores, or language outcomes. Little is known about the effects of PCE among school-aged children aged 6 years and older.

Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 2012

The objective of the present study was to examine the influence of prenatal drug exposure (PDE) o... more The objective of the present study was to examine the influence of prenatal drug exposure (PDE) on memory performance and supporting brain structures (i.e., hippocampus) during adolescence. To achieve this goal, declarative memory ability and hippocampal volume were examined in a well-characterized sample of 138 adolescents (76 with a history of PDE and 62 from a non-exposed comparison group recruited from the same community, mean age=14 years). Analyses were adjusted for: age at time of the assessments, gender, IQ, prenatal exposure to alcohol and tobacco, and indices of early childhood environment (i.e., caregiver depression, potential for child abuse, and number of caregiver changes through 7 years of age). Results revealed that adolescents with a history of PDE performed worse on the California Verbal Learning Test-Child Version (CVLT-C), and story recall from the Children's Memory Scale (CMS), and had larger hippocampal volumes, even after covariate adjustment. Hippocampal volume was negatively correlated with memory performance on the CVLT-C, with lower memory scores associated with larger volumes. These findings provide support for long-term effects of PDE on memory function and point to neural mechanisms that may underlie these outcomes.

Origins and Development of RecollectionPerspectives from Psychology and Neuroscience, 2012

ABSTRACT This chapter analyzes evidence of the development of memory in infancy and early childho... more ABSTRACT This chapter analyzes evidence of the development of memory in infancy and early childhood. In doing so, it addresses pressing questions about whether and when recollection is present in infancy, and reflects on the methodological approaches and the conclusions that these approaches afford about early recollection. Adhering to the definition of recollection as the capacity to remember events in their spatiotemporal context, it provides a careful examination of recent research differentiating among spatial, temporal, and other attributes of episodic recollection.

Developmental Psychology, 2014

The present study used a cohort-sequential design to examine developmental changes in children&am... more The present study used a cohort-sequential design to examine developmental changes in children's ability to bind items in memory during early and middle childhood. Three cohorts of children (aged 4, 6, or 8 years) were followed longitudinally for 3 years. Each year, children completed a source memory paradigm assessing memory for items and binding. Results suggest linear increases in memory for individual items (facts or sources) between 4 and 10 years of age but that memory for correct fact/source combinations (indicative of binding) showed accelerated rates of change between 5 and 7 years. Taken together, these results suggest differences exist in developmental trajectories between the development of memory processes underlying successful item memory and processes underlying binding. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to longitudinal research examining autobiographical memory.

• Overall, children performed well on the task remembering a large percentage of items and their ... more • Overall, children performed well on the task remembering a large percentage of items and their associated details as well as correctly rejecting new items.

Background: Unusual sensory-related behaviors, particularly in response to sound and touch, are a... more Background: Unusual sensory-related behaviors, particularly in response to sound and touch, are associated with the phenotype of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, not all children diagnosed with autism exhibit this behavioral profile, and among those who do there may be sensitivity to relatively weak stimulation or tolerance of strong sensory input. Objectives: In this study, part of a larger, on-going project to identify autism subphenotypes (The Autism Phenome Project), we sought to identify electrophysiological markers of sensory processing subphenotypes. Our approach was to examine the electrocortical response amplitude recorded to stimuli of increasing loudness. A critical feature of this approach was the development of procedures that yielded robust data from individual very young participants with ASD. Methods: 60-channel event-related potentials (ERPs) were elicited by randomly presented 50, 60, 70, and 80 dB 50 ms complex tones via headphones from 30 typically devel...

Child Development, 2015

Age-related differences in behavioral and electrophysiological indices of memory were examined in... more Age-related differences in behavioral and electrophysiological indices of memory were examined in 3- to 6-year-old children (N = 76). Behaviorally, no differences were observed in children's ability to identify old items; however, 3-year-old children were less accurate in correctly rejecting new items, and 3- and 4-year-old children recalled fewer contextual details compared to 5- and 6-year-old children. Age-related differences in electrophysiological measures (800-1,000 ms after stimulus onset) were observed both to items recalled with contextual details, which increased between 3 and 4 years, and items recalled without contextual details, which were greatest in 5-year-old children, even after adjusting for global age-related differences. These findings, interpreted within a dual-process framework, may suggest changes in both recollection and familiarity processes during early childhood.

Developmental Science, 2013

The aim of the present study was to investigate developmental changes in encoding processes betwe... more The aim of the present study was to investigate developmental changes in encoding processes between 6-year-old children and adults using event-related potentials (ERPs). Although episodic memory ('EM') effects have been reported in both children and adults at retrieval and subsequent memory effects have been established in adults, no previous ERP studies have examined subsequent memory effects in children. This represents a critical gap in the literature because encoding processes, and changes in neural correlates supporting encoding, partially account for age-related improvements in children's memory performance. Results revealed that subsequent memory effects differed between children and adults temporally, directionally, and topographically. These findings lend support to the hypothesis that encoding processes and their neural correlates are an important source of change in memory development. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at http://youtu.be/sH83_qVimgc.

Child development, 2015

Episodic memory shows striking improvement during early childhood. However, neural contributions ... more Episodic memory shows striking improvement during early childhood. However, neural contributions to these behavioral changes are not well understood. This study examined associations between episodic memory and volume of subregions (head, body, and tail) of the hippocampus-a structure known to support episodic memory in school-aged children and adults-during early childhood (n = 45). Results revealed significant positive relations between episodic memory and volume of the hippocampal head in both the left and right hemispheres for 6- but not 4-year-old children, suggesting brain-behavior relations vary across development. These findings add new information regarding neural mechanisms of change in memory development during early childhood and suggest that developmental differences in hippocampal subregions may contribute to age-related differences in episodic memory ability.

Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 2015

The ability to recall contextual details associated with an event begins to develop in the first ... more The ability to recall contextual details associated with an event begins to develop in the first year of life, yet adult levels of recall are not reached until early adolescence. Dual-process models of memory suggest that the distinct retrieval process that supports the recall of such contextual information is recollection. In the present investigation, we used both behavioral and electrophysiological measures to assess the development of memory for contextual details, as indexed by memory for temporal order, in early childhood. Results revealed age-related improvements in memory for temporal order despite similar levels of memory for the individual items themselves. Furthermore, this pattern of recall was associated with specific components in the electrophysiological response. Consistent with electrophysiological research in adults, distributed, positive-going activity late in the waveform was associated with increases in recall of contextual details and the development of recollective processes.

Bold indicates significant difference Current Characteristics: Age at scan (years) 14.3, (1.0) 13... more Bold indicates significant difference Current Characteristics: Age at scan (years) 14.3, (1.0) 13.5, (1.1) F(1,33) = 6.20, p = .02 Gender 10 male, 10 female 5 male, 10 female Chi square(1)= 0.97, p=.32 Participant's IQ (WASI) 91.25, (11.58) 94.2, (12.27) F(1,33) = 0.53, p=.47 Currently in non-maternal care 50% 0% Chi square(1)= 10.5, p=.001 Current caregiver IQ (WASI) 84.6, (13.60) 89.4, (13.42) F(1,33) = 1.11, p=.30 Birth Characteristics: Birthweight (z score) -.68 (.67) -.17 (1.13)* F(1,32) = 2.73, p=.11 Birth head circumference (z score) -.66 (.86) -.45 (.94)* F(1,32) = 0.45, p=.51 Birth height (z score) -.49 (1.13) .37 (.74)* F(1,32) = 6.21, p=.02 Mothers age at birth (years) 27.05 (4.64) 23.6 (4.99) F(1,33) = 4.44, p=.04 Maternal education at birth (years) 10.90 (1.33) 11.67 (.82) F(1,33) = 3.85, p=.058 Apgar scores (1min) range 6-9, mode = 8 range 6-9, mode = 8* Mann-Whitney U = 113.5, p=.49 Apgar scores (5min) range 8-10, mode = 9 range 8-10, mode = 9* Mann-Whitney U = 12...

Frontiers in Psychology, 2015

Previous research has documented an association between executive functioning (EF) and memory for... more Previous research has documented an association between executive functioning (EF) and memory for bound details. However, it is unknown if this relation varies as a function of the type of bound information (i.e., unitized versus non-unitized) and whether this association changes as a function of age during childhood, when both EF and memory undergo rapid development. The current study sought to address these gaps by examining whether relations between parent-reported EF differed for unitized versus non-unitized memory representations and if these relations differed between children who were 4, 6, or 8 years of age. Results revealed that EF was selectively associated with non-unitized associative memory in 8-year-old children; no significant relations between EF and either memory condition were evident in 4- or 6-year-olds. These results suggest relations between EF and memory may be specific to non-unitized representations and that this association may emerge across childhood as both EF and memory abilities develop.

Advances in child development and behavior, 2010

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2010

faces in a broader set of categories than older infants, with older infants being worse at discri... more faces in a broader set of categories than older infants, with older infants being worse at discriminating between faces belonging to infrequently encountered categories. Perceptual narrowing results demonstrate that experience shapes selectivity during infancy, leading to profound perceptual consequences. The fi rst year of life (specifi cally the 6-to 9-month age range) is thus a critically important time period for studying how distinctions are made between faces and non-face control stimuli, as well as between distinct categories of faces defi ned at varying levels of granularity. Our aim in the present study was to characterize how distinct types of face selectivity may interact during this period of development. This is distinct from any effort to characterize true perceptual narrowing, but shares the same broad goal of perceptual narrowing research insofar as we wish to more fully understand the developmental timecourse of differential processing for various kinds of faces and face-like stimuli. Specifi cally, we ask how differential processing of faces at a sub-ordinate level (personally familiar vs. unfamiliar face) may lead to differential processing at a basic level (face vs. inverted face).

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2014

We investigated the role of the amygdala in mental state inference in a sample of adults and in a... more We investigated the role of the amygdala in mental state inference in a sample of adults and in a sample of children aged 4 and 6 years. This period in early childhood represents a time when mentalizing abilities undergo dramatic changes. Both children and adults inferred mental states from pictures of others' eyes, and children also inferred the mental states of others from stories (e.g., a false belief task). We also collected structural MRI data from these participants, to determine whether larger amygdala volumes (controlling for age and total gray matter volume) were related to better face-based and story-based mentalizing. For children, larger amygdala volumes were related to better face-based, but not story-based, mentalizing. In contrast, in adults, amygdala volume was not related to face-based mentalizing. We next divided the face-based items into two subscales: cognitive (e.g., thinking, not believing) versus affective (e.g., friendly, kind) items. For children, performance on cognitive items was positively correlated with amygdala volume, but for adults, only performance on affective items was positively correlated with amygdala volume. These results indicate that the amygdala's role in mentalizing may be specific to face-based tasks and that the nature of its involvement may change over development.

PEDIATRICS, 2010

CONTEXT-Studies through 6 years have shown no long-term direct effects of prenatal cocaine exposu... more CONTEXT-Studies through 6 years have shown no long-term direct effects of prenatal cocaine exposure (PCE) on children's physical growth, developmental test scores, or language outcomes. Little is known about the effects of PCE among school-aged children aged 6 years and older.

Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 2012

The objective of the present study was to examine the influence of prenatal drug exposure (PDE) o... more The objective of the present study was to examine the influence of prenatal drug exposure (PDE) on memory performance and supporting brain structures (i.e., hippocampus) during adolescence. To achieve this goal, declarative memory ability and hippocampal volume were examined in a well-characterized sample of 138 adolescents (76 with a history of PDE and 62 from a non-exposed comparison group recruited from the same community, mean age=14 years). Analyses were adjusted for: age at time of the assessments, gender, IQ, prenatal exposure to alcohol and tobacco, and indices of early childhood environment (i.e., caregiver depression, potential for child abuse, and number of caregiver changes through 7 years of age). Results revealed that adolescents with a history of PDE performed worse on the California Verbal Learning Test-Child Version (CVLT-C), and story recall from the Children's Memory Scale (CMS), and had larger hippocampal volumes, even after covariate adjustment. Hippocampal volume was negatively correlated with memory performance on the CVLT-C, with lower memory scores associated with larger volumes. These findings provide support for long-term effects of PDE on memory function and point to neural mechanisms that may underlie these outcomes.