More to it than meets the eye: how eye movements can elucidate the development of episodic memory

ABSTRACT

The ability to recognise past events along with the contexts in which they occurred is a hallmark of episodic memory, a critical capacity. Eye movements have been shown to track veridical memory for the associations between events and their contexts (relational binding). Such eye-movement effects emerge several seconds before, or in the absence of, explicit response, and are linked to the integrity and function of the hippocampus. Drawing from research from infancy through late childhood, and by comparing to investigations from typical adults, patient populations, and animal models, it seems increasingly clear that eye movements reflect item–item, item–temporal, and item–spatial associations in developmental populations. We analyse this line of work, identify missing pieces in the literature and outline future avenues of research, in order to help elucidate the development of episodic memory.

KEYWORDS:

• Relational binding
• eye movements
• episodic memory development

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Dr Mark L. Howe and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. We also acknowledge the James S. McDonnell Foundation for supporting the research programme in eye-movements and memory development.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.