Abstract
Third- and seventh-grade children were given a free recall task either with unrelated pictures or with pictures representing members of common categories. Mean number of items recalled increased with age for both related and unrelated lists. However, whereas the tendency to cluster related items increased with age, use of subjective organization with unrelated materials did not increase. The lack of developmental change in subjective organization was observed not only with Bousfield and Bousfield’s (1966) traditional index of pairwise consistencies, but also with Pellegrino’s (1971) measures of higher order organization. The data suggest that developmental increases in the amount of information recalled are not solely a function of age differences in amount of output organization.
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This work was supported by Grant OEG-2-9-4004431060(010) from the Office of Education. Preparation of this report was facilitated by Grant HD 08459 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Appreciation is expressed to officials at the Council Rock School System in Bucks County, Pennsylvania for their assistance in obtaining subjects. Thanks are also due Miriam Vaughan for making available copies of her pictorial materials, some of which were employed here, and David F. Bjorklund for comments on an earlier draft of this report.
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Ornstein, P.A., Hale, G.A. & Morgan, J.S. Developmental differences in recall and output organization. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 9, 29–32 (1977). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03336919
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03336919