On the importance of contextual cues for spontaneous recall in 35- and 46-month-old children

Recent evidence shows that returning to the same distinct lab setting after 1 week triggers spontaneous memories in 35- and 46-month-old children. However, it remains unclarified which specific cues are triggering spontaneous recall. We report two experiments in which distinct contextual cues were altered between encoding and test. In Experiment 1 (N = 76), the color of the box containing the event props was changed. Despite this change, the children still showed spontaneous recall. In Experiment 2 (N = 77), a more radical change was employed as the children returned to a completely differently furnished, and novel room. The children still engaged in spontaneous recall, although less frequently. Importantly, when comparing the number of children having spontaneous recollections, only about half as many children in Experiment 2 as in Experiment 1 exhibited spontaneous memories. These results underscore the importance of an encoding-retrieval match for spontaneous episodic memory in young children.