Asking direct questions like “Tell me all you remember about X” is the predominant method when examining event memories in young children. To respond to such questions, children will have to engage in strategic retrieval involving a deliberate search process. Whereas the search component is by itself trivial for adults, it is cognitively demanding for young children due to the protracted development of prefrontal cortex.

However, spontaneous retrieval is an important, yet until recently, largely overlooked, alternative mode of retrieval requiring less cognitive effort. Spontaneous retrieval is based on simple associations, typically triggered by distinct cues in the context, and as such neither a result of questions asked nor of deliberate search strategies. Although most parents probably have experienced their children having spontaneous recollections, and even though involuntary memories—the ‘adult’ equivalent to spontaneous recall—have been examined extensively, surprisingly little is known about young children’s spontaneous memories.

In this presentation I will review some recent studies that have contrasted strategic and spontaneous retrieval in three- and four-year-old children. The findings suggest that strategic retrieval is more demanding than hitherto assumed, and that spontaneous retrieval may be an ontogenetic forerunner of strategic retrieval of past events. I shall argue that both modes of retrieval are important when pursuing a comprehensive understanding of the development of event memory.