The Effects of Differences in Classification Style on Preschool Children's Memory

Bjorklund, David F.; Zaken-Greenberg, Flora

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1981.tb03128.x

Cited by 3 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…In general, the memory performance of young children on complementary lists has not been very good. This has been the case with lists of experimenter-defined complementary relations (Bjorklund, 1980;Galbraith & Day, 1978) and, also in the case of child-generated groupings, in which high levels of recall and organization are not attained unless subjects are given an opportunity to achieve stable sorting of the to-be-remembered items prior to recall (Bjorklund et al, 1977;Bjorklund & Zaken-Greenberg, 1981;Worden, 1976). This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Slot-filler categories as memory organizers for young children.

Lucariello¹,

Nelson²

1985

Developmental Psychology

109

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Two experiments tested the hypothesis that scripts (event schemas) provide a basis for categorical structures in semantic memory. In Experiment 1, preschoolers received in free or category-cued/constrained recall either a slot-filler or a taxonomic list. The slot-filler list was also presented in a script-cued/constrainedrecall condition. The slot-filler list consisted of categories composed of items that share the same function within the same script. The taxonomic list consisted of categories composed of items that share the same function but are from different scripts. Memory and organization were significantly higher for the slot-filler list, which suggests that slot-filler categories closely correspond to the child's semantic memory structures. The category-cued/constrained procedure had no effect on memory performance for either list, whereas the script-cued/constrained procedure facilitated recall of the slot-filler list. In Experiment 2, a complementary list of categorically different items, which occur in the same scripts as the slot fillers but which do not share the same function within the scripts, was compared to the taxonomic and slot-filler lists in free recall. Significantly better memory and organization were achieved on the slot-filler list than on either the taxonomic or complementary list, which suggests that slot-filler categories are more available in the preschoolers' semantic memory than either complementary groupings or heterogeneous taxonomic categories.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Slot-filler categories as memory organizers for young children.

Lucariello¹,

Nelson²

1985

Developmental Psychology

109

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Other findings also provide support to age-related differences in children’s cognition. For example, compared to preschool-age children, school-age children are much more likely to use complex cognitive skills to sustain their attention and memory [ 58 – 61 ]. Such abilities related to memory and attention may help older children engage in more complex conversations with their parents, which in turn may help them attune to their parents’ direction.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Communication of Culturally Dominant Modes of Attention from Parents to Children: A Comparison of Canadian and Japanese Parent-Child Conversations during a Joint Scene Description Task

et al. 2016

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Previous findings have indicated that, when presented with visual information, North American undergraduate students selectively attend to focal objects, whereas East Asian undergraduate students are more sensitive to background information. However, little is known about how these differences are driven by culture and socialization processes. In this study, two experiments investigated how young children and their parents used culturally unique modes of attention (selective vs. context sensitive attention). We expected that children would slowly learn culturally unique modes of attention, and the experience of communicating with their parents would aid the development of such modes of attention. Study 1 tested children’s solitary performance by examining Canadian and Japanese children’s (4–6 vs. 7–9 years old) modes of attention during a scene description task, whereby children watched short animations by themselves and then described their observations. The results confirmed that children did not demonstrate significant cross-cultural differences in attention during the scene description task while working independently, although results did show rudimentary signs of culturally unique modes of attention in this task scenario by age 9. Study 2 examined parent–child (4–6 and 7–9 years old) dyads using the same task. The results indicated that parents communicated to their children differently across cultures, replicating attentional differences among undergraduate students in previous cross-cultural studies. Study 2 also demonstrated that children’s culturally unique description styles increased significantly with age. The descriptions made by the older group (7–9 years old) showed significant cross-cultural variances in attention, while descriptions among the younger group (4–6 years old) did not. The significance of parental roles in the development of culturally unique modes of attention is discussed in addition to other possible facilitators of this developmental process.

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“…However, it appears that the less stable organization achieved in the single-sort task was sufficient to result in comparably high levels of performance for children of all SES levels tested here. 3 Previous work contrasting recall performance between single-and criterion-sort tasks (Bjorklund & Zaken-Greenberg, 1981) led us to presume that, relative to the criterion-sort task, minimal organization of items would occur in the single-sort task. Furthermore, it was expected that when subjects organized information on the basis of complementary criteria-a classification style more characteristic of low-SES childrenlevels of recall in the single-sort task would be significantly lower than for subjects who organized information on the basis of taxonomic criteria-a classification style more characteristic of middle-SES children.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For each subject, the percentage of items grouped into exclusively taxonomic categories was computed. For a grouping to be considered exclusively taxonomic, all items in that group, regardless of whether there were two, three, four, or five, had to be from the same experimenter-defined taxonomic category (e.g., cow, dog; carrot, corn, lettuce; see Bjorklund & Zaken-Greenberg, 1981). The percentage of items grouped into exclusively taxonomic categories is presented by SES and task in Table 2.…”

Section: Sorting Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We hypothesized, therefore, that SES differences in memory performance would be apparent in a task in which subjects were permitted to sort items into groups only once prior to recall (single-sort task). This difference would be attributed to the low-SES children's greater use of complementary rather than taxonomic sorting styles, which past research has shown yields lower levels of recall than taxonomic organization when stable sorting is not achieved (e.g., Bjorklund & Zaken-Greenberg, 1981;Galbraith & Day, 1978). In contrast, it was hypothesized that the opportunity to sort to a stable criterion before testing for recall (criterion-sort task) would give low-SES subjects opportunity to establish stable organizational schemes.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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