The Development of Knowledge concerning the Effect of Categorization upon Free Recall

Abstract

MOYNAHAN, EILEEN D. The Development of Knowledge concerning the Effect of Categorization upon Free Recall. CmiD DEVELOPMENT, 1973, 44, 238-246. First, third, and fifth graders predicted the relative ease of recalling sets of categorized items versus sets of noncategorized items. Third and fifth graders were significantly more likely than first graders to predict that the categorized sets would be easier to remember. Similar grade effects were obtained when the Ss' explanations were considered. Grade differences in predictions could not be attributed to the younger childrens' failure to detect the categories or to the facilitative effect of categorization on recall being any weaker for the younger children. Ss who had performed either an easier prediction task or a recall task involving the sets of categorized and noncategorized items before receiving the categorization-prediction task performed better on the categorizationprediction task than did Ss with no task experience before the categorization-prediction task. The effect of prior recall experience, however, was significant only when the explanation scores were considered. Prior experience seeing and naming the sets of categorized and noncategorized items had no effect on performance on the categorization-prediction task.