Developmental changes in word attribute utilization for organization and retrieval in free recall

Abstract

The development of two distinct but related activities in free recall: organization and retrieval, was examined in relation to the development of memory attributes. Twenty-five words printed on cards were chosen to be cross-classified according to conceptual category and according to acoustic similarity. Second-graders (8 year olds), sixth-graders (12 year olds), and college students (20 year olds) either sorted the stimulus words as they wished, were yoked to another subject's sort, or were instructed to sort the words in a blocked fashion according to one attribute or the other. Age differences in attribute preference for sorting were found, as well as significant interactions between age level and attribute basis for mean recall-within-categories, for cued recall, and for clustering in free recall. The results lend strong support to the theory that attribute dominance does in fact change as a function of age, in terms of both organizational schemes and the role of these schemes for recall, and suggest that psychologists reexamine the present notions of children's organizational skills in recall tasks.