The use of themes as retrieval cues in children's memory for stories

Interviewing Young Children about Body Touch and Handling

“…Mandler (1990) cautions that even after children develop expressive language it may not be safe to assume that verbal protocols are straightforwardly associated with what a child remembers about an event. But young children have difficulty generating retrieval cues for themselves (Ritter, 1978;Schmidt & Schmidt, 1986) and often rely on adults to provide retrieval cues for them (Fivush & Hammond, 1990;Hudson, 1990). We also know that young children may be hampered in reporting their experiences because they have difficulty gaining clear and quick access to their memories (Emmerich & Ackerman, 1978;Kobasigawa, 1974;Perlmutter & Ricks, 1979;Ritter, Kaprove, Fitch, & Flavell, don & Flavell, 1977;Wellman, 1977Wellman, , 1978, and young children can use cues to increase reporting .…”

Building a story representation: The effects of early concept prominence on later causal inferences by children.

“…This research, however, did not describe what processes are involved in building story representations nor how initial processes affect concept use. In general, little is known about where the concepts come from that are used in inferences, the constraints on concept use, or whether the constraints differ developmentally Similarly, Schmidt and Schmidt (1986) examined the influence of thematic factors on children's retrieval of story information and, to this extent, focused on representational processes. However, they did not provide direct evidence about how thematic factors affect the use of specific concepts in an inference.…”

“…Similarly, Schmidt and Schmidt (1986) examined the influence of thematic factors on children's retrieval of story information and, to this extent, focused on representational processes. However, they did not provide direct evidence about how thematic factors affect the use of specific concepts in an inference.…”

Effects of Temporally Varied Biased and Unbiased Story Summaries on the Suggestibility of Preschoolers

“…researchers have reliably demonstrated that between-session repeated information, in the form of repeated questioning, tends to facilitate memory consolidation when the questions are carefully constructed to be unbiased (Poole & White, 1991: Schmidt & Schmidt, 1986. In a recent study by Warren and Lane (1995), adults and children who were questioned shortly after an event were more accurate on final, neutral questions than participants who were not questioned initially.…”

“…For example, Schmidt and Schmidt ( 1986) found that 5-year-olds' memories for stories were greatly enhanced by the presentation of thematic statements relating to a story previously read to them. According to the authors, the thematic prompting served as a powerful retrieval cue helping the children to organize the story information in a meaningful way.…”