Early Childhood Research Quarterly 43 (2018) 23–32 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Early Childhood Research Quarterly The role of executive functions in accessing specific autobiographical memories in 3- to 6- year-olds M. Nieto, L. Ros * , J.J. Ricarte, J.M. Latorre Department of Psychology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Castilla La Mancha, Spain a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 21 April 2016 Received in revised form 19 October 2017 Accepted 16 November 2017 Keywords: Autobiographical memory Autobiographical memory specificity Executive functions Verbal ability variables Preschoolers a b s t r a c t Autobiographical memory develops gradually across preschool years (ages 3–6 years) through processes of social interaction and cognitive development. This study analyzed the role of executive functions, age, and verbal abilities in the capacity to retrieve specific autobiographical memories in a convenience sample of 228 Spanish 3- to 6- year-olds (ages 3.42–6.50 years). Participants were administered an autobi- ographical memory test and executive functions and verbal tests. We analyzed the relation between these variables and autobiographical memory specificity. All the variables analyzed were positively related to autobiographical memory specificity. However, using structural equation modeling, our results showed that autobiographical memory specificity was better explained by executive functions and age was indi- rectly related to higher AM specificity through higher levels of executive functioning. These findings are in agreement with previous research suggesting that specific autobiographical memory occurs with the development of executive functions during preschool years. © 2017 Published by Elsevier Inc. 1. Introduction Autobiographical memory (AM) refers to a knowledge base of personal information that includes specific episodic memories of past events and more conceptual, self-related information (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). Autobiographical memories (AMs) are key elements of human experience with diverse functions: self, social, and directive (Bluck, Alea, Habermas, & Rubin, 2005). Impor- tantly, all three functions are related to individual well-being (Fivush, 2011; Waters, 2013) and are transcultural (Alea & Wang, 2015). Autobiographical knowledge is hierarchically organized across different levels of specificity (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). At the general level, we can find extended memories, which are gen- eral memories associated with events that last more than a day (e.g., “the weekend I spent at my friend’s house”), and categorical memories, which are general, repeated events grouped together in a category (e.g., “Christmas dinners with my family”). At the lowest level of the hierarchy are specific AMs, which are personally sig- nificant memories associated with a particular time and place that lasted a day or less than a day (e.g., “when I got my bike”). * Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Medicine, Uni- versity of Castilla-La Mancha, Avda. Almansa 14, 02006, Albacete, Spain. E-mail address: Laura.Ros@uclm.es (L. Ros). Difficulty in retrieving specific AMs (i.e., a cognitive style con- sisting of retrieving general memories from the AM, commonly known as overgeneral memory) is one of the most widely stud- ied aspects of AM, due to its association with certain types of psychopathology, such as depressive disorders or post-traumatic stress disorder (Moore & Zoellner, 2007; see Ono, Devilly, & Shum, 2016, for a meta-analytic review; Williams et al., 2007). However, very little research has been conducted with normative samples to study the capacity for retrieving specific memories in preschoolers (McDonnell, Valentino, Comas, & Nuttall, 2016; Nieto, Ros, Mateo, Ricarte, & Latorre, 2017; Nuttall, Valentino, Comas, McNeill, & Stey, 2014). AM develops gradually from the age of three years through processes of social interaction and cognitive development (Fivush, 2011; Nelson & Fivush, 2004). Language has been identified as one of the contributors to the emergence of AMs in early childhood (Reese, 2002). Moreover, developmental researchers have under- lined the role of executive functions in the normative development of AM specificity (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000; Williams et al., 2007). The aim of this work is to analyze the relation between AM specificity, age, executive functions, and language in a sample of Spanish preschoolers aged 3–6 years. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2017.11.004 0885-2006/© 2017 Published by Elsevier Inc.