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The role of effort in strategy effectiveness (i.e., benefit for recall) was examined by determining whether reducing the capacity demands of a strategy would increase recall in young children who are spontaneously highly strategic. Kindergartners and first graders (N = 116) chose, by opening doors, certai n objects to view from a larger pool of objects during a study period in a selective recall task. The most mature strategy involved viewing only the objects to be remembered. Effort was eliminated by having the experimenter execute this strategy for the children, and this (a) increased recall among children who had spontaneously produced this mature strategy on earlier trials, and (b) eliminated age differences in the recall of strategic children that emerged when strategy production was effortful (i.e., spontaneously produced).

Allocation of attention was examined on a selective attention task in which some items were relevant (i.e., their locations should be remembered) and some were irrelevant. 100 4- and 5-year-olds formed 4 experimental conditions and 1 control group. 3 experimental groups had 1 added feature to aid selectivity (fewer stimuli, increased perceptual salience of the difference between relevant and irrelevant stimuli, or extra reminders of the locations of relevant and irrelevant stimuli). The fourth experimental condition included all features. A story and explicit instructions identified which objects were relevant. During study times, children opened doors (marked with cages or houses) of a box to reveal animals or household objects. Selectivity (opening mainly relevant doors) was high, compared to previous studies using no story with 6-year-olds, even in the control condition. Selectivity increased significantly beyond the level in the control condition only when all facilitative features were combined. Selectivity was not significantly related to recall. This outcome, in conjunction with previous research, suggests a lag between the production of a strategy and its facilitative effect on recall.

Allocation of attention was examined on a selective attention task in which some items were relevant (i.e., their locations should be remembered) and some were irrelevant. 100 4- and 5-year-olds formed 4 experimental conditions and 1 control group. 3 experimental groups had 1 added feature to aid selectivity (fewer stimuli, increased perceptual salience of the difference between relevant and irrelevant stimuli, or extra reminders of the locations of relevant and irrelevant stimuli). The fourth experimental condition included all features. A story and explicit instructions identified which objects were relevant. During study times, children opened doors (marked with cages or houses) of a box to reveal animals or household objects. Selectivity (opening mainly relevant doors) was high, compared to previous studies using no story with 6-year-olds, even in the control condition. Selectivity increased significantly beyond the level in the control condition only when all facilitative features were combined. Selectivity was not significantly related to recall. This outcome, in conjunction with previous research, suggests a lag between the production of a strategy and its facilitative effect on recall.

No abstract