Heyes (Reference Heyes2018) claims that social interaction and social learning processes between children and others are mechanisms by which numerous cognitive abilities are inherited. By implication, therefore, many essentially “human” capacities are both learnable and teachable. This claim can be fruitfully extended to make contact with recent work on the development of memory and socio-emotional function. Although Heyes contrasts “a Vygotskian psychology” with real cognitive science (p. 18), we argue that sociocultural developmental psychology can drive new directions in gadgetry science. To extend Heyes’ claims and offer guidance in that task, we use memory as a case study.

Heyes lists episodic memory as a possible cognitive gadget, but does not discuss specific pathways of inheritance. This natural and promising line of inquiry will require us to identify the components of its “starter kit,” and then the cognitive mechanisms (the “mills”) that emerge reliably in development when configured through sociocultural interaction (Sutton Reference Sutton and Hodder2019). Here, as a first step, we focus on autobiographical memory, which is plausibly a compound cognitive capacity incorporating episodic memory alongside other components.

Autobiographical memory emerges late in development. Western adults typically recall little of their lives before age 3 or 4, a phenomenon known as infantile amnesia (Bauer Reference Bauer2015). Young children themselves can recall events that occurred at age 2 or earlier, but these sparsely detailed memories are not usually retained into adulthood (Bauer Reference Bauer1996; Hayne Reference Hayne2004). Surprisingly, evidence for other forms of memory emerges in infancy (Hayne Reference Hayne2004). Accordingly, the neural wetware for remembering is in place much earlier than autobiographical remembering itself, which has to be learned in a slow, multistage, and variable process essentially involving sociocultural interaction (Nelson Reference Nelson1996; Nelson & Fivush Reference Nelson and Fivush2004; Sutton Reference Sutton, Bietti and Stone2015). Between ages 2 and 6, Nelson argued, “biology hands over development to the social world” (Reference Nelson1996, p. 325).

Across 30 years, sociocultural memory research has shown how children learn to structure and elaborate on their own autobiographical memories in reminiscing with their parents (Fivush et al. Reference Fivush, Haden and Reese2006; Nelson & Fivush Reference Nelson and Fivush2004). Parents who use a highly “elaborative” reminiscing style, scaffolding the unfolding narrative using open questions and event details, have children with particularly rich and detailed memories: first for the events being discussed, and later for other, undiscussed events (Fivush et al. Reference Fivush, Haden and Reese2006). Thus, children appear to learn not just about what to remember, but how to do so (Wareham & Salmon Reference Wareham and Salmon2006). These claims are further supported by two lines of research.

First, intervention studies show that a high elaborative style causally influences autobiographical memory and other capacities, such as emotion understanding (see Salmon & Reese Reference Salmon and Reese2016). A role for culture is clear. In these studies, mothers in the intervention condition are coached to use a high-elaborative style with their children. A control group is either placed on a wait list or, to control for the number of interactions, asked to complete a play-based task together. Children in the intervention condition subsequently display stronger memory than those in the control condition, with evidence of successful change in shared recall after 6 months (Van Bergen et al. Reference Van Bergen, Salmon, Dadds and Allen2009) and in independent recall after 12 months (Reese & Newcombe Reference Reese and Newcombe2007). Given these potential benefits, there have been calls within clinical research for parent-child reminiscing interventions to be used with children who are developmentally at risk (Wareham & Salmon Reference Wareham and Salmon2006). Such children typically experience infrequent, low-elaborative reminiscing and may show delayed memory development. Replications have been successful with maltreating parents (Valentino et al. Reference Valentino, Comas, Nuttall and Thomas2013) and children with conduct disorder (Salmon et al. Reference Salmon, Dadds, Allen and Hawes2009; Van Bergen et al. Reference Van Bergen, Salmon and Dadds2018).

Second, cross-cultural studies show corresponding differences in parents reminiscing and children's autobiographical memory (Leichtman et al. Reference Leichtman, Wang, Pillemer, Fivush and Haden2003; Wang Reference Wang2013). European American mothers reminisce up to three times as often as Chinese mothers, for example (Mullen & Yi Reference Mullen and Yi1995), with a more elaborative style and greater emotion content. Chinese mothers, in contrast, are typically less elaborative and more likely to discuss social expectations (Wang Reference Wang, Meade, Harris, Van Bergen, Sutton and Barnier2018). Consistent with these patterns, European American children show earlier and more detailed memories than Chinese children (Han et al. Reference Han, Leichtman and Wang1998; Wang Reference Wang2004). In New Zealand, Māori mothers are particularly elaborative when discussing culturally significant birth stories with their children (Reese & Hayne Reference Reese, Hayne and MacDonald2008). Māori children show a particularly early age of first memory: just 2.5 years on average (MacDonald et al. Reference MacDonald, Uesiliana and Hayne2000). Wang attributes these cultural differences to variability in memory function, stating that “this need for memory sharing and collaborative remembering of personal experiences is not universal” (Reference Wang, Meade, Harris, Van Bergen, Sutton and Barnier2018, p. 297).

Building on these two lines of reasoning, new questions about the interaction of multiple different lines of cultural inheritance may also be useful in driving cognitive gadgetry science forward. To date, most sociocultural memory research has occurred with mother-child (and, occasionally, father-child) dyads. In new work, we show that mothers are more elaborative but less mind-minded than teachers (Andrews, Reference Andrews, Van Bergen and Wyversubmitted). Yet no research has considered how these and other social partners might interact to support memory. At least two possible patterns of cultural inheritance require testing. One is a compensatory pattern, in which regular reminiscing conversations with at least one teacher, grandparent, sibling, or friend might be sufficient to enable rich and full autobiographical memory development. This is particularly important for children whose parents are absent or neglectful. The second is a cumulative pattern, in which memory scaffolding from all social partners matters incrementally and in which children who are neglected by one key partner may show impoverished memory outcomes. Future studies that disentangle the influence of multiple social partners are crucial.

As demonstrated above, different patterns of cultural inheritance strongly influence everyday development. The social implications of these claims should not be underestimated, particularly when considering the developmental nurturance of children who are at risk of poor cognitive, socio-emotional, and educational outcomes. There are important implications for theory, too. By using autobiographical memory as an exemplar, we show how elements of a sociocultural developmental stance can contribute easily and richly to an expanded cognitive science of gadgets.