The child's memory for unitized scenes

Abstract

This article shows that the nursery school child remembers a set of pictures or objects better if the items are unitized. For example, a shoe, key, and box are better remembered if the key is in the shoe and the shoe is in the box. Even arbitrary units are better remembered than a series of items. In Exp. I, the child was first shown a display of pictures or objects. He named each item and the items were then hidden; then one was removed and the remaining items were exposed. The S was then asked what was missing. Different groups of Ss were tested in different conditions. The unitized condition showed a clear superiority. Experiment II replicated this result with a simpler procedure and with each S as his own control. Experiments III and IV then examined the role of verbal descriptions and verbalization in producing the effect.