The Effects of List Organization and Rehearsal Activity on Children's Free Recall

Abstract

ORNSTEIN, PETER A.; NAUS, MARY J.; and MILLER, THOMAS D. The Effects of List Organization and Rehearsal Activity on Children's Free Recall. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1977, 48, 292-295. Previous work has shown that developmental changes in the activity of children's rehearsal, measured in terms of the number of different items rehearsed together, are related to corresponding changes in the recall of unrelated items. This work also suggests, however, that under conditions of very salient list structure rehearsal factors may be relatively unimportant. The present experiment further examined the joint effects of list organization and rehearsal strategy. In a free-recall task, sixth graders were given instructions to rehearse aloud either actively or passively and were exposed to 1 of 3 sets of materials which differed in terms of the presumed salience of the list organization: unrelated items, related items presented randomly, and related items blocked by category. Under both types of rehearsal, recall varied as a function of list organization. Further, differences between the 2 rehearsal strategies were observed most clearly with the unrelated items and the related items presented randomly, whereas there were minimal differences when related items were blocked.