How semantic knowledge influences episodic memories in younger and older primary-school-aged children

We applied a novel virtual reality paradigm to investigate the interplay between semantic information and episodic memory in N = 103 younger (6-7 years; n = 52; n = 32 female) and older (9-10 years; n = 51; n = 22 female) primary-school-aged children. The paradigm allowed for a nuanced assessment of how semantic knowledge influences spatial and temporal recall of task-relevant and task-irrelevant items. In line with our hypothesis, we found evidence of semantic construction, such that children’s episodic recall was shaped by their semantic knowledge, particularly for task-irrelevant objects. Our findings replicate and extend prior work demonstrating semantic construction in young children, showing that these effects continue in middle childhood. Unexpectedly, we found no consistent age-effects on children’s recognition memory and spatial recall, possibly due to high familiarity of the stimulus material. However, temporal recall, a particularly challenging aspect in early development, showed age-related differences. Older children were more likely to temporally cluster objects typically belonging in the same room, indicating semantic information influencing the temporal organization of memory recall. Our results show that when familiar events unfold atypically, children may fill in gaps in episodic memory with prior knowledge, potentially leading to memory errors.