Learning strategy differentially impacts memory connections in children and adults.

Even once children can accurately remember their experiences, they nevertheless struggle to use those memories in flexible new ways-as in when drawing inferences. However, it remains an open question as to whether the developmental differences observed during both memory formation and inference itself represent a fundamental limitation on children's learning mechanisms, or rather their deployment of suboptimal strategy. Here, 7-9-year-old children (N = 154) and young adults (N = 130) first formed strong memories for initial (AB) associations and then engaged in one of three learning strategies as they viewed overlapping (BC) pairs.