Presentation mode and organizational strategies in young children

Abstract

Davies and Brown (1978) have reported that significant facilitation to recall and mnemonic organization may be obtained in children as young as four years through the provision of blocked presentation and constrained recall. This result contrasts with a number of previous studies which have failed to find such effects in young children. Two experiments are reported which examine the hypothesis that the positive findings were due to the use of objects rather than the planometric stimuli traditionally employed in such tasks. Experiment 1 replicated the Davies and Brown study in all respects save that line drawings were substituted for objects. The effects of constraint at recall were maintained but the influence of blocked presentation was eliminated. Experiment 2 was also a replication, but this time using photographs of the objects as stimuli. The effects of constrained recall were maintained, though on this occasion blocking also influenced performance but only on the second trial. The results are discussed in terms of the influence of context on the range and effectiveness of retrieval processes exhibited by young children in memory tasks.