The Effects of Expertise and IQ on Children's Memory: When Knowledge is, and When it is Not Enough

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the assumption that rich domain knowledge can compensate for low overall aptitude on domain-related cognitive tasks. Whereas previous research dealing with text recall and text comprehension tasks has provided evidence supporting this assumption, recent studies examining the effects of both expertise and intelligence on a strategic memory task (sort-recall task) found that the effects of domain knowledge were not strong enough to eliminate performance differences between high-and low-aptitude experts. In our experiments, both text-recall and sort-recall measures related to the game of soccer were presented to high-and low-aptitude fourth-grade children who were either soccer experts or novices, using a within-subjects design. The main difference between the two studies concerned the testing procedure: Whereas in Study 1 testing was conducted in small groups, in Study 2 children were tested individually. Both studies confirmed the outcome of previous research; that is, effects of aptitude on text recall and comprehension were eliminated when the impact of expertise was considered simultaneously. However, they also replicated the earlier finding that this pattern of results does not generalise to other memory tasks. That is, expertise does reduce but not eliminate the relationship of IQ to memory tasks involving deliberate strategies.