Exploring forgetful minds
Brock University study looks at thought process of preschoolers
On a typical morning walk to preschool, the conversation between mom and four- year- old son might go something like this: “What are you supposed to do with your hat and mitts?”
Long, contemplative pause. “When you take them off, put your mitts straight into your pockets,” instructs mom.
“And put your hat into your sleeve.”
Mom Karen Campbell might have her son, Paul, repeat it back to her. Several times.
Mitts into pockets.
Hat into sleeve.
Got it?
And then, she crosses her fingers in a figurative sense as Paul disappears into the school.
Karen can only speculate what transpires in the recesses of his memory at the time of winter clothing removal in the organized chaos of undressing preschoolers.
Fact is, sometimes his hat and mitts arrive home. Sometimes they do not.
“I think he puts them in his cubby,” she said. “We have to eventually go in and collect items.”
Her hypothesis: “I guess he just gets distracted.”
She doesn’t imply deliberate disregard for her request, but wonders, “Maybe it’s not important enough to him?”
Across town, Allison Bowman, mom of two- year- old Hannah and four- year- old Flynn, is noticing similar patterns of forgetfulness.
Or is it?
“I don’t know if I’d call it forgetfulness,” she muses. “They both get so distracted.”
A typical scenario might involve Allison, in the throes of prepping dinner, asking her kids: “Go downstairs and tidy up the toys.” Or even something more specific: “Please clean up the Paw Patrol in the basement.”
Her expectations are not lofty. She’d be happy if they scooped up the toys and put them into a bin. Alas, when she checks on their progress, inevitably they’re playing with other toys. “Making a huge mess,” she says.
“They forget. They couldn’t hold the thought for that long and they get easily distracted.”
She might be on to something. Forgetful preschoolers is a speciality of Brock University psychology assistant professor Caitlin Mahy. She is the director of the Developing Memory and Cognition Lab, and part of her research focuses on understanding why kids often struggle with remembering what they were supposed to do.
Her research targets prospective memory — the ability to remember to do something in the future. It’s what gets kids to put homework into a backpack without a prompt or full- on nagging. Wear a bike helmet. Meet a friend at the playground after school. Or feed the family goldfish.
What her research suggests is that while most preschoolers struggle to remember tasks, the reason they forget can vary with age.
Fact is, the younger preschoolers — two- and three- year- olds — don’t even remember what they were told to do, when asked. It’s a developmental thing. To remember tasks, the brain needs to take that piece of information, encode it, store it then retrieve it, says Mahy.
She isn’t sure at which point it breaks down for really young kids, but the results are consistent. “At the time they’re supposed to pull it out of their memory, they don’t.”
So, if you ask a three- year- old to feed the goldfish, be prepared for your pet to go hungry.
And if you inquire further — “What did I ask you to do?” — you will likely be greeted with a blank stare. This is not the face of deception. The child really doesn’t remember, says Mahy.
Here’s why she’s so sure.
This past summer, her team collaborated with the Ontario Science Centre to test some 80 preschoolers from a variety of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Children were given a series of cards to sort. The cards had pictures of animals on them, as well as either a blue or yellow dot. They were instructed to put blue dot cards in the blue box, yellow in the yellow box. Except when they found an elephant card. It was to go in a different box.
Once they were certain the child understood the rules, the game began. While the three- year- olds sorted the colours well, they generally forgot to keep the elephants separate. And at the end when they were asked “What did you have to do when you saw an elephant?” they didn’t have a clue.
Meanwhile, most four- year- olds still forgot to keep the pachyderms separate, but could at least remember what they had been told to do, when asked.
In essence, the older kids had no problem remembering what they forgot to do.
Further, many of these kids didn’t even realize they had neglected to sort out the elephants.
Mahy speculates: “They were so caught up in sorting the animals, they didn’t detect the elephants.”
She suggests that for the most part, they really did forget. There is no ill- intent or wilful lapse of memory.
“Kids in everyday life, they get absorbed and distracted by other activities,” she says.
Seems they need a cue in their environment to trigger their memory. Otherwise, it gets forgotten until someone reminds them.
Rest assured parents, memory will improve, says Mahy.
“Most of it is developmentally driven,” she says. “It’s important for parents to realize they’re not forgetting things to be naughty.
“It’s really because they don’t have the cognitive capacity required to fulfil these intentions.”
At this point, parents might want to know if they can speed things along. If they can somehow train the brains of their absent- minded preschoolers so that their requests to tidy toys, or put mittens in pockets, will be remembered.
Probably not ( with the caveat that every child develops differently), said Mahy.
In another study, children aged four to six years were given a similar card- sorting task. Before the game started, they had a few minutes to draw pictures in order to let some time pass and to allow memory to kick in.
The kids were put into three groups. Some were offered no reminders to separate the elephants. Others were reminded immediately before the sorting game began. And others were given a hint that they might want to pay attention in this game.
The end result? There were no remarkable differences. The reminders, direct or otherwise, didn’t seem to have an impact, she said.
Maybe a single, verbal reminder isn’t enough? Maybe they need a visual cue? All this, for future research.
So, her advice?
“Be patient,” she said. “Most children will get there eventually.”