The organization of free recall by young children

Abstract

Subjective and categorical organization of verbal recall by 5- and 8-year-old children was investigated. Fifteen-word lists composed of adult category items, S's own category items, or non-category items were presented for six recall trials following recall on a training list of category labels or noncategory words. Improvement over six trials was found for older Ss on all lists; the younger groups improved only on the non-category list. There was a parallel increase over trials in measures of organization, both category and subjective. Organization was about the same for both age groups, and type of training had no effect. Changes in recall over trials and with age were attributed to changing strategies of organization rather than to a change in the basic propensity or ability to organize, or to the learning of common modes of organization.