Developmental Differences in Recall and Output Organization

Abstract

Third‐ and seventh‐grade children were given a free recall task either with unrelated pictures or with pictures representing members of common categories. Mean number of items recalled increased with age for both related and unrelated lists. However, whereas the tendency to cluster related items increased with age, use of subjective organization with unrelated materials did not increase. The lack of developmental change in subjective organization was observed not only with Bousfield and Bousfield's (1966) traditional index of pairwise consistencies, but also with Pellegrino's (1971) measures of higher‐order organization. The data suggest that developmental increases in the amount of information recalled is not solely a function of age differences in amount of output organization.

Organization versus item effects of an elaborated knowledge base on children's memory.

“…Large and reliable differences have been reported in children's free recall of unorganized lists of items, similar to the age trends reported for sets of categorizable lists (see Ornstein, Hale, & Morgan, 1977). However, unlike the research with categorized word lists, which customarily finds corresponding age increases in organization, there is no convincing evidence that the age differences in recall for sets of unrelated items are mediated by age changes in organization (e.g., Lawrence, 1966; Ornstein et al, 1977; Perlmutter & Myers, 1979; Shapiro & Moely, 1971). In addition to the above studies, which used indices of subjective organization based on the sequential consistency in the order in which words were recalled on successive trials, at least two studies have used children's self-generated groupings of items prior to recall as an index of subjective organization (Bjorklund, Ornstein, & Haig, 1977; Ringel & Springer, 1980).…”

“…This interpretation is supportive of the results of studies examining age differences in children's recall of unrelated items. Large and reliable differences have been reported in children's free recall of unorganized lists of items, similar to the age trends reported for sets of categorizable lists (see Ornstein, Hale, & Morgan, 1977). However, unlike the research with categorized word lists, which customarily finds corresponding age increases in organization, there is no convincing evidence that the age differences in recall for sets of unrelated items are mediated by age changes in organization (e.g., Laurence, 1966;Ornstein et al, 1977;Perlmutter & Myers, 1979;Shapiro & Moely, 1971).…”

Developmental Effects of Grouping and Recoding on Learning a Movement Series

“…While limited amounts of organization are exhibited below 10 years of age, a concomitant improvement in task performance with increased organization is nonexistent (Kokobun, 1973;Laurence, 1966;Nelson , 1969;Ornstein, Hale, & Morgan, 1977;Shapiro & Moley, 1971). The magnitude of correlations between organization measures and amount of recall increases with age (Gerjouy & Spitz, 1966;Laurence, 1966;Shapiro & Moley, 1971) .…”

Nutzung und Effektivität der kategorialen Organisationsstrategie im Grundschulalter

“…Ackerman, 1984;Ceci, 1980;Ceci & Howe, 1978b). Danach können bei einer reichhaltigen Wissensbasis auch automatische Prozesse für das kategoriale Organisieren von Vor-und Grundschulkindern rungsfähigkeit zu erhöhen, sondern ein Nebenprodukt des normalen Inform ls Basis für die anschließenden Prozesse ansehen (Lange, 1973;Haynes Kulhavy, 1976), sehen andere eine direkte Beziehung zwischen dem Ausmaß des lationen (Chi, 1978(Chi, , 1985Chi & Koeske, 1983) (Chechile & Richman, 1982;Ghatala, 1984;Ornstein, Hale & Morgan, 1977) und der fast automatischen Aktivierung von Verbindungen zwischen den Item-Sets, also nicht-strategischen Organisationsprozessen (Bjorklund & Bjorklund, 1985;Bjorklund & Zeman, 1982). Bei für die jeweilige Kategorie typischem Material (Bjorklund, 1988;Rabinowitz, 1984;Rabinowitz & Kee, 1994) oder stark miteinander assoziierten Items (Bjorklund & Jacobs, 1985;Frankel & Rollins, 1985;Schneider, 1986) (Bjorklund & Buchanan, 1989).…”