Associative and categorical hypotheses of organization in the free recall of adults and children

The emergence of strategic knowledge activation in categorical clustering during retrieval

“…Similar to previous findings regarding clustering during encoding (Frankel & Rollins, 1985;Schneider, 1986), associative relations also played a substantial role in mediating category clustering during retrieval. This supports the view of an interaction between knowledge base and strategic competence in memory development.…”

“…Undoubtedly, age differences in children's degree of knowledge concerning category relations exist (e.g., Bjorklund, Thomson, & Omstein, 1983;Posnansky, 1978). Furthermore, studies where children's knowledge of categorical relations was manipulated by norms of category typicality (e.g., Bjorklund, 1988;Frankel & Rollins, 1985;Schneider, 1986) revealed that children's categorical clustering in free recall is a function of the typicality of stimulus items. Bjorklund (1985Bjorklund ( , 1987 concluded that most age differences in recall and clustering can be explained solely in terms of age differences in the strength of relationships between category exemplars and category labels, without having to propose age differences in strategy implementation.…”

“…First, although empirical evidence strongly suggests that age differences in knowledge base (especially conceptual knowledge) contribute significantly to developmental changes in clustering (e.g., Bjorklund & de Marchena, 1984;Bjorklund & Jacobs, 1985;Frankel & Rollins, 1985;Schneider, 1986), this contribution might rest not only on purely automatic side effects of the developing knowledge base but also on the emergence of strategic competencies. Although a necessary condition for category organization, knowledge base is, perhaps, sufficient only in preschool and early elementary school years.…”

“…To solve this problem, some recent studies (e.g., Frankel & Rollins, 1985;Schneider, 1986;Schneider, Borkowski, Kurtz, & Kerwin, 1986) relied on sort/recall tasks, where both sorting during encoding (input organization) and clustering during recall (output organization) were recorded. One of the main results was that output organization was a better predictor of younger children's recall, while input organization (sorting) made a significant contribution to predicting third and fourth graders' recall.…”

Interference and integration: The fan effect in children and adults

“…Thus, participants did not have to organise the sentences, as they were already organised for them. Although most studies regarding developmental difference in organisation processes indicate that children are able to organise the materials from 10 years old and on (Frankel & Rollins, 1985;Hasselhorn, 1992), these studies have used simple categorical relations. It was possible that the 12±13-year-old children of our study were not able to spontaneously capture and use the possible organisation when sentences and causal links were involved.…”