The influence of age and presentation order upon children’s free recall and learning to learn

Free recall in children.

“…Category clustering of items in recall also shows an increasing trend with increasing age, both in single-trial free recall (Bousfield et al, 1964;Handler & Stephens, 1967;Vaughan, 1968) and in multitrial free recall (Cole et al, 1971;Moely, Olson, Halwes, & Flavell, 1969;Nelson, 1969;Rosner, 1971;Yoshimura, Moely, & Shapiro, 1971). Compared to the age-recall function, however, the clustering relationship has had more negative outcomes.…”

“…However, Denney and Ziobrowski (1972) observed first graders to cluster more than adults when the stimulus word list was composed of complementary pairs (e.g., pipe and tobacco), and adults were observed to cluster more than first graders when the list was composed of similar items (e.g., king and ruler), suggesting that younger children may cluster according to different schemes than do adults. While there have been fewer studies, subjective organization seems to increase with age (Laurence, 1966;Nelson, 1969;Rosner, 1971;Shapiro & Moely, 1971).…”

“…Whatever the development of free recall is in children, it should be noted that many studies do not report results much over 50% recall whatever the manipulations Gerjouy & Spitz, 1966;Kobasigawa & Middleton, 1972;Nelson, 1969;Rosner, 1971;Scribner & Cole, 1972;Yoshimura et al, 1971). It is generally the younger children who do not typically recall more than 50%; in those cases in which above 50% recall has been observed, it is usually in older children (Nelson, 1969;Rosner, 1971;Yoshimura et al, 1971). Such results need to be interpreted cautiously, of course, because differing size lists are used in different studies.…”

Mnemonics: Underlying Processes and Practical Applications

“…Other research also using college-age adults (Khan and Paivio, 1988) has demonstrated that category organization and script-schema organization leads to equivalent levels of recall. However, it should be noted that categorical and schematic organization is unlikely to enhance recall in young children (Yoshimura et al, 1971). …”

The Effect of Organization Training on Children's Free Recall of Category Items

“…Can young children be induced to organize when category lists are presented in the usual random orders? It appears from several studies Yoshimura, Moely, & Shapiro 1971) that young children do not show learning-to-learn effects for the use of organization. Evidence for the effectiveness of more direct teaching methods is not clear.…”