Zoe Marshall*, Richard Allen, Charity Brown, Mark Mon-Williams & Amanda Waterman
Institute of Psychological Sciences, University of Leeds
What is Temporal Memory?
Temporal memory is our memory for time. Three key aspects are:
• Semantic Memory - knowledge about general time patterns, e.g. minutes, months
• Short-Term Memory - immediate recall of short-term temporal information
• Episodic Memory - longer-term memory for temporal information
Children’s temporal memory abilities have been shown to increase with age, but no one study has examined the
relationship between the three aspects.
The current research looked at sequencing (the order events occur) and duration (how long events last).
What did
we do?
Sixty nine children from a primary school in South Yorkshire were tested from Year 2 (mean = 6y 7m), Year 4 (mean = 8y 11m) and Year 6 (mean = 10y 7m).
The CTK questionnaire and short-term tasks were completed at time-point one, whilst the episodic tasks were completed at time-point two.
CKT Questionnaire
Episodic Tasks
Short-Term Tasks
Children answered 24
questions in 3 sections:
• General knowledge –
e.g. how many
minutes in an hour?
• Duration – e.g. how
long does morning
break last?
• Sequencing – e.g. what month comes
after August?
Children completed two
computer tasks
designed using Kinelab:
• Sequencing: Children saw six shapes
in succession, before having to
indicate the order they were
presented
• Duration: Children had to reproduce
a witnessed duration (3-26 seconds)
Morning - children
witnessed a 9 minute
video of a woman
making 6 space
items.
Afternoon - children arranged picture
cards of the six items according to:
• The order the space items were made
• The length of time it took to make
each item
What did
we find?
CKT Questionnaire
Short-Term Tasks
Episodic Tasks
Sequencing Score
Episodic Sequencing Score
6
30
Year 6
20
10
0
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Average Difference from
Correct Duration
Year 2
Year 4
Year 6
% Duration
% Sequencing
Question Type
% General
Year 4
6
4
Year 6
2
4
Year 2
3
Year 4
2
Year 6
1
0
Year
Episodic Duration Score
Year 2
Seconds
% Correct
Year
5
Score
Year 4
40
Children’s
sequencing ability
did not increase
with age
Children’s
duration ability
increased with age
6
5
Score
Percentage of Questions Correct
Year 2
50
Score
Children’s
sequencing ability
increased with age
Children’s knowledge about time
increased with age
4
Year 2
3
Year 4
2
Year 6
1
Children’s
duration ability
increased with age
0
0
Year
Relationships between Tasks
Significant correlations were found between:
• CKT knowledge and STM duration task
• STM sequencing task and STM duration task
There was no correlation between STM and episodic performance.
Year
Exploring Relationships Further…
Regression analysis will next be carried out to see if performance
on one aspect of temporal memory will allow predictions to be
made on other aspects of temporal memory.
These findings may have implications for both educational and
legal settings.