Memory in children

The current study assessed whether the accuracy of children’s self-reports of
events experienced differs as a function of age and how the question is asked. Additional
factors like metamemory and distractibility were assessed. Primary-school students (M=
7.7 years) and middle-school students (M = 9.7 years) completed two different versions
of an event frequency measure, two times, at one week intervals. In one of the measures
of event frequency, no memory prompts were provided (uncued questionnaire condition),
while in the other measure, recall categories for aiding recollections were provided (cued
questionnaire condition). Participants’ self-reported event frequencies for the cued and
uncued questionnaires were compared with trained observers’ event frequencies for the
cued and uncued conditions. Older children reported event frequency more accurately
than younger participants. Participants also reported events with greater accuracy with
the aid of memory prompts than without, an effect that was especially strong among the
younger children. Neither metamemory nor distractibility was accountable for the differences within age groups. The findings suggest that age-related improvements in
accuracy of event frequency across the transition into adolescence may, in part, be due to
improvements in the ability to recall and recount those events in the absence of memory
cues.

Cocaine use during pregnancy has been associated with neurobehavioral and cognitive difficulties in infants and toddlers. The present study used an elicited imitation procedure to investigate memory for sex-typed event sequences in preschool children. Measures of immediate and delayed recall was assessed in three groups of children: drug-exposed, at-risk, and not-at-risk. Results indicated that (1) drug-exposed males showed no evidence of demasculinization and/or feminization, (2) drug-exposed children, in general, did not recall a fewer number of different target acts or fewer actions in the correct order than the at-risk or not-at-risk children, and (3) drug-exposed and at-risk children exhibited a greater number of repetition errors and novel errors than not-at-risk children. Findings suggest that certain effects of prenatal drug exposure are still evident in children of preschool age.

The development and correlates of utilization deficiencies in second-, third-, and fourth-graders were examined in two separate testing sessions, separated by a one-week interval. In the first session, children received a series of tests assessing self-attributions, metamemory, and intelligence. These factors were proposed to influence the development of utilization deficiencies. In the second session, children were given five sort/recall trials using a different list of categorically related words on each trial and then classified as utilizationally deficient according to their patterns of strategy use and recall over trials. Analysis of mean levels of recall and strategy use demonstrated utilization deficiencies for third graders. Analysis of data for individual subjects revealed that utilization deficiencies were associated with enhanced performance for second and third graders, but lower performance for fourth graders. Attributions of effort were found to be associated with utilization deficiencies for the third graders. The nonsignificant associations of intelligence and metamemory with utilization deficiencies are discussed in terms of domain specific cognition.

Subjects in kindergarten, grade 2, and college were shown a videotape of a bicycle theft followed by a one month longitudinal study simulating the witness's experience during the pretrial phase of a criminal prosecutorial workup. Subjects were asked for free recall as well as for responses to nonleading and correct or incorrectly leading questions. Accuracy of free recall was high for all ages. Younger children were more susceptible to suggestive leading questions and adults were found to reject many of the "correctly" leading questions. Differences were found between answers to central and peripheral items and subjects were found to change their answers within the same interview in relation to age of the witness and centrality of the question.

Cognitive theorists hypothesize two types of cognitive processes
(e.g., automatic and effortful) which may influence human information
processing. This thesis investigates age differences in when children
use intralist associative relationships (thought to be automatic in
nature) to identify other (categorical) relations. Use of conceptual/
categorical relations to organize recall is thought to be effortful in
nature. Sixty children each from grades 3, 5, 7, and 9 were presented
orally with lists of 20 words under free-recall instructions. Results
provide support for the position that recall memory of young children
is mediated primarily by associative rather than conceptual
relationships. Also, partial support was obtained for the three stage model of the development of organization proposed by Bjorklund and
Zeman (1982). However, the model's prediction of when children will
optimally use associative relationships to identify categorized
relations was inaccurate. These results indicate that older childrens'
recall can be facilitated by automatic cognitive processes resulting in
higher levels of clustering (organization) and recall.

This experiment was designed to examine the development of
organizational strategies during the course of children's recall.
First, third, and fifth grade children were asked to recall the names
of their classmates. Organization of recall was assessed with regard
to structures in the classroom (e.g., seating arrangements, reading
groups). To determine if awareness of strategy use increased over the
course of recall, some children were asked metamemory questions after
recalling only six names, others after recalling 12 names, and a third
group after recalling as many names as possible. Analyses of interitem
latency data, clustering, and metamemory responses suggest that the
highly organized retrieval in class recall is mediated by the
activation of automatic relationships and not by the use of deliberate
organizational strategies. The various associative relationships
between names lead children to switch between different modes of
organization. This process results in well structured recall, without
requiring any conscious awareness.

Developmental and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in classificatfon
styles indicate that young and low SES children are more likely
to sort objects nontaxonomically whereas older and middle SES children
are more likely to sort taxonomically. When children establish stable
organizational schemes (taxonomic or nontaxonomic), memory performance
is usually enhanced. Eighty-five kindergarten and first grade subjects
were divided into three socioeconomic groupings and given two sort/recall
tasks. For whites, recall was greater when subjects sorted to a
criterion of two identical sorts than it was when they sorted only
once, and white College subjects were more apt to sort the items
taxonomically than were children of other SES groupings. No significant
effects were found for blacks. Because the results revealed no
consistent differences in performance as a function of SES, it was
concluded that children of all SES levels can generate and use
organizational schemes to guide retrieval.

This experiment explored the possibility of a developmental
shift from organization according to associative criteria to
organization according to taxonomic criteria. First, fourth
and seventh graders were presented with a list of items which
could be organized equally well into either groups of taxonomic
or associative pairs. Children were randomly assigned
to either the Sort or No Sort Condition. While clustering
levels for children in the Sort Condition were significantly
greater than those of children in the No Sort Condition both
had high overall levels of clustering. First grade children's
organizational styles during sorting, were significantly more
associative than were fourth or seventh graders, who increasingly
organized taxonomically. These results suggest that it
is not that young children are incapable of using effective
organizational strategies to mediate recall, but rather, that
their strategies differ from those of older children and
adults.

First and third grade children were asked to recall the names
of their classmates. Organization of recall was assessed
with regard to structures in the classroom (e.g. , seating
arrangements, reading groups). Following recall, children
were given a list of four possible strategies and asked to
select which, if any, they used. Levels of organization were
high and undifferentiated for first and third graders with
the majority of children being unable to select accurately
the strategy used in class recall as reflected by organization
(ARC) scores. Furthermore, the distribution of subjects accurately
identifying a strategy in this task was no greater
than th2t of subjects in an earlier experiment who were asked
to describe the strategy they used. These results indicate
that although children demonstrate high levels of recall and
organization on this task, they do not show comparable abilities
in strategy awareness, and that this is not due merely to
their inability to produce a verbal response.

Kindergarten, second, and fifth graders were given 15 self-adhesive
line drawings to affix on either (1) a simple scene,
(2) a scrambled scene, (3) a blank sheet of paper, or (4) a
sheet of paper divided into 15 squares. Recall of the objects
was tested immediately and again after one week. In general,
immediate recall was greater in the simple-scene condition
than in all others for all grades tested. Recall in the
scrambled condition was also greater than in the other two
conditions for second and fifth graders, but not for the
kindergarten children. The sheet divided into squares and
the blank sheet conditions did not differ from each other at
any time. The results for delayed recall were similar in that
the condition with the simple scene yielded performance superior
to all others. However, the scrambled condition no
longer differed from the other two conditions. The results
suggest the importance of assessing children's memory for information
in conditions or backgrounds which approximate those
found in the real world, and of the use of schematic or episodic
organization by young children.