ONTOGENY IS DIFFERENT FOR EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT MEMORY IN HUMANS

This study was aimed to clarify in how far ontogenetic development is different for declarative/explicit compared to procedural/implicit learning. These two memory subsystems are differentially affected in a number of pathological conditions. Sixty-one children between the age of 5 and 10 years were tested on a verbal story recall and non-verbal pictorial recall task, representing explicit memory. To test for implicit memory, a motor mirror tracking task and a non-motor tower-of-hanoi puzzle were used. Both explicit memory tasks showed a clear developmental profile with an increase in the number of recalled items for immediate, late and delayed recall with adult values not reached before the age of 9-10 years. In contrast, there were no age differences for both implicit memory tasks. The study demonstrates that explicit and implicit memory follow different maturational trends and further corroborate the notion of two different memory systems.