11/12/2025
🧠 Did you know that kids remember time differently than adults?
Our lab just published a new preprint review led by grad student Owen Friend with Dr. Jeni Pathman exploring how children, teens, and adults remember “when” events occurred in fundamentally different ways. These differences have real and important implications for juvenile justice. When children are witnesses in legal cases, we ask them detailed questions about when events occurred. But if we don't understand HOW kids remember time at different ages, we might misjudge their credibility when they're actually doing the best their developing brains allow.
So what are these differences?
Young children (ages 4-9) remember events like separate snapshots. They know what happened, but struggle to connect memories together in time.
Teenagers begin to recognize patterns as their brains mature, but they struggle to apply this knowledge flexibly in new situations.
By early adulthood, the brain can finally access both specific details AND general patterns about timing, depending on what's needed.
These fundamental differences show that we need developmentally appropriate approaches when asking children about WHEN something happened, so we can make sure to evaluate their memory fairly rather than through an adult lens of timestamping.
Read our full review here: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/n8m4v_v1
