Children's Recognition Memory Research Articles

Script development and memory organization in preschool and elementary school children∗

Young (3–4 years old) and old (7–8 years old) subjects participated in a three‐phase study investigating the development of scripts and the ability to use scripts as an information‐retrieval guide. In the script generation phase, young children did not verbalize as much script information as older subjects. In a typicality rating phase, all generated information was rated for typicality by both groups. No difference in overall typicality ratings between age groups was found, suggesting both groups had similar script content, regardless of differences in script generation abilities. A recognition test phase tested children's recognition memory for passages containing typical and atypical items. Memory discrimination varied significantly with age and typicality, and a significant age × typicality interaction was found. The script pointer plus tag hypothesis was employed to suggest that although younger children have similar scripts, their script “boundaries” may be less well defined. It was concluded that f...

Picture recognition memory in children: effects of homogeneous versus heterogeneous classes of pictures.

This study shows that, when homogeneous classes of pictures are used in a picture-recognition task, developmental trends do emerge whereas when a heterogeneous class of pictures is used such developmental trends are not found. These results are consistent with the view that as children get older (3-4 yr., 6-7 yr., 9-10 yr., adolescents, adults) they get better at organizing material that is more difficult to differentiate or remember.

The effects of symmetry and contour on recognition memory in children

Children in prekindergarten, kindergarten, and second grade were tested on a delayed match-to-sample task using abstract visual patterns. The patterns varied both in type of visual organization (unstructured, diagonally symmetrical, vertically symmetrical, and horizontally symmetrical) and in amount of contour. Following the initial memory task, we attempted to train half of the children at each grade by directing their attention to axes of symmetry; the other half of the children received a control task. Subsequently, the subjects were given a second delayed match-to-sample test. On both pre- and post-training trials, structure influenced performance, especially in the two younger groups. Vertical and horizontal symmetry generally facilitated performance in the prekindergarteners, while all three types of symmetry facilitated performance in the kindergarteners. In addition, children generally responded more accurately to patterns with lower levels of contour. They also made more like-contour than unlike-contour confusions, indicating that quantitative aspects of patterns were encoded. Group differences suggested that both processing capacity and memory increase during the age range studied. Finally, there was no indication that training improved performance at any age.

Developmental Changes in the Effects of Presentation Mode on the Storage and Retrieval of Noun Pairs in Children's Recognition Memory

KEE, DANIEL W.; BELL, TERECE STOVALL; and DAVIS, BERYL R. Developmental Changes in the Effects of Presentation Mode on the Storage and Retrieval of Noun Pairs in Children's Recognition Memory. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1981, 52, 268-279. 4 problems in children's paired-associate memory were addressed in this study: (1) reappraisal of the presumed developmental trend in presentation mode effect (i.e., the increasing superiority of pictorial over verbal presentations) during the grade-school year; (2) identification of the locus (storage vs. retrieval) of this developmental effect; (3) evaluation of the influence of combined presentation (verbal plus pictorial) relative to pictorial presentation on the storage and retrieval of pairs; and (4) evaluation of the effects of combined presentation relative to verbal presentation on the storage and retrieval of pairs. To these ends, 9 experimental conditions were partitioned into 3 experimental designs. A total of 576 children, drawn in equal numbers from 4 grade levels (kindergarten vs. second vs. fourth vs. sixth), memorized a 32-pair list of common nouns by the study-test recognition procedure. The results indicated an increasing superiority of pictorial over verbal presentations during the grade-school years. This grade X presentation mode interaction was observed in the storage phase of task performance but not in the retrieval phase of task performance. Combined presentation did not influence either the storage or retrieval of pairs relative to pictorial presentation. However, combined presentation enhanced the storage of pairs relative to verbal presentation. Furthermore, a developmental trend in combined presentation relative to verbal presentation was observed in the retrieval of pairs such that pair retrieval was facilitated by combined presentation with older children, while presentation mode (combined vs. verbal) did not affect the retrieval of pairs for younger children. The results from this study are discussed in terms of dual-coding and elaboration theories of paired-associate memory.

Developmental Changes in the Effects of Presentation Mode on the Storage and Retrieval of Noun Pairs in Children's Recognition Memory

Developmental Changes in the Effects of Presentation Mode on the Storage and Retrieval of Noun Pairs in Children's Recognition Memory

The effects of pretraining on children's recognition memory for pictures.

The effects of pretraining on children's recognition memory for pictures.

Children's recognition memory for their drawings.

One hundred preschool boys and girls (2 1/2 and 5 1/2 year old) were asked to recognize four drawings they had made a week earlier. The child's drawing was presented with three foils which varied along the following dimensions: detail, size, and perspective. Chance performance was .25 correct; the group's performance of .34 correct was significantly different from chance (p < .0001); the oldest children's performance was .39 correct (p < .0001). These performances are impressive because of the slight variation between the target and foil drawings. The amount of differentiation in the children's drawings may be a factor in the ease of recognition.

Developmental differences in children's recognition memory for faces.

Developmental differences in children's recognition memory for faces.

Effects of visual and auditory distractors on learning disabled and normal children's recognition memory performance.

Effects of visual and auditory distractors on learning disabled and normal children's recognition memory performance.

Developmental differences in children's recognition memory for faces.

Developmental differences in children's recognition memory for faces.

Effects of visual and auditory distractors on learning disabled and normal children's recognition memory performance.

Effects of visual and auditory distractors on learning disabled and normal children's recognition memory performance.

Children's Recognition Memory for Written Sentences: A Comparison of Good and Poor Readers

In 18 pairs of fifth-grade males matched on sex, CA, and IQ, 1 was a good reader and 1 a poor reader. Each child read 8 3-sentence acquisition stories, subsequently performed a card-sorting task, and finally a recognition test consisting of 40 sentences which either were in the acquisition set or were 1 of 5 kinds of transformation. Retention was better for semantic aspects of the stories, but retention of tense was poor. Good readers mad fewer recognition errors than poor readers on new sentences which were true inferences from the acquisition list and on tests for retention of tense and number.

Children's Recognition Memory for Written Sentences: A Comparison of Good and Poor Readers

Children's Recognition Memory for Written Sentences: A Comparison of Good and Poor Readers

Storage and retrieval of noun pairs in children's recognition memory: Analysis of presentation mode and elaboration effects.

Storage and retrieval of noun pairs in children's recognition memory: Analysis of presentation mode and elaboration effects.

Storage and retrieval of noun pairs in children's recognition memory: Analysis of presentation mode and elaboration effects.

Storage and retrieval of noun pairs in children's recognition memory: Analysis of presentation mode and elaboration effects.

Verbal Effects in Children's Visual Recognition Memory

Preschool children were shown line drawings of 12 pairs of items and were asked to describe them. Each child saw elaborated and unelaborated pictures (items interacting vs. not interacting). The children's descriptions were rated as elaborated or unelaborated (interactions mentioned vs. not mentioned). 1 week later, a recognition test was given, with choices between an elaborated and an unelaborated picture for each pair. In general, recognition accuracy was best for elaborated pictures given elaborated descriptions and worst for unelaborated pictures given elaborated descriptions. However, for the younger subjects, 32-55 months old, accuracy was influenced more by type of picture than by type of description; and for older subjects, 56-70 months old, the opposite was true. Apparently, younger preschoolers rely more on visual memory for recognition of this type of picture, and older preschoolers rely more on reconstruction from verbal memory.

Decision processes in children's recognition memory

Kindergarteners and third graders were given a continuous recognition memory task involving two-digit numbers. In addition, a rating scale consisting of photographs of various facial expressions was used to obtain confidence judgments from the Ss. Conventional analyses as well as signal detection analyses of the data revealed the following results: (a) the overall performance of the third graders was superior to that of the kindergarteners; (b) memory strength decreased as the number of intervening items increased; (c) there was no difference in the forgetting rates of the two grade levels; (d) the third graders exhibited a more liberal response bias than the kindergarteners; (e) both the hit rate (probability of correctly labeling an old stimulus as old) and the false-alarm rate (probability of incorrectly labeling a new stimulus as old) increased across blocks of items; (f) the increases in the hit rate and the false-alarm rate over blocks were due to a change in criterion from a relatively conservative level to a more lenient one; (g) the lower the S's level of confidence in judging an item as old, the lower was the probability of that item actually being old; (h) the third graders were better than the kindergarteners at gauging the accuracy of their recognition responses. It was concluded that with respect to recognition memory, chidren as young as 5 1 2 years old are capable, to some extent, of monitoring their own memory states.

The relation between lisping and visual recognition memory in children

It was argued that if silent reading involves articulatory coding then children with a pronounced lisp ought to code two visual nonsense words such as RETH and RESS more similarly than children without a lisp. This, in tum, would lead to more false positives in a recognition memory task. Although the data confirmed this hypothesis, it turned out that lisping children made more correct positives (hits) as well. Lisping and normal children did not differ in sensitivity (d′); therefore, the main result was a difference in criterion. An implausible hypothesis was offered so as to salvage a portion of the original argument.

Short-Term Recognition Memory in Children

Short-Term Recognition Memory in Children

Ordering of nonverbal items in children's recognition memory

In two experiments children of different ages were instructed to recognize certain items previously pointed out from nine simultaneously exposed nonverbal items. In Exp. 1, recognition conditions of two, three, or two out of three items were administered; in Exp. 2, children had to recognize three items either in the exact order shown or in any order. In both experiments type of material was a variable. The youngest children, CA 5 to 6, showed a significant amount of spontaneous ordering in easy conditions, while ordering in the hardest condition was low for these Ss but increased with age. A major result was that the oldest Ss, CA 10, recognized as many items correctly when they were requested to order items as when they were not; at CA 6 this finding held only for easy items. It is concluded that storage of order information is relatively independent from retention of item information in recognition memory.