Effects of Children's Spontaneous Verbal Rehearsal on Learning Performance under Delay of Feedback

Abstract

HENSLEY, J. HIGGINS; LEWENSTEIN, JACQUELINE; and RABINOWITZ, F. MICHAEL. Effects of Children's Spontaneous Verbal Rehearsal on Learning Performance under Delay of Feedback. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1974, 45, 479-482. The influence of spontaneous verbal rehearsal on learning under delay of feedback was investigated. Session 1 included a serial recall task used to assess individual differences in spontaneous verbal rehearsal. From session 1 performance, 36 children were assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: producers, nonproducers, or naming nonproducers (children who had not rehearsed but who were instructed to label studied pictures in session 2). In session 2, the children in these groups were tested on a multiple-item discrimination learning task in which feedback was immediate for half the pairs and delayed for 15 seconds for the remaining pairs. Surprisingly, the producers made more correct responses with immediate feedback than with delayed, while this difference was not significant for the other 2 groups.