Abstract
Young children are assumed to be inefficient inhibitors in a number of cognitive tasks. In two experiments, we examined whether such deficits extend to children’s episodic recall. We used two inhibition paradigms: retrieval-induced forgetting, the detrimental effect of retrieval practice with a subset of learned items on recall of the unpracticed items, and part-list cuing, the detrimental effect of the presentation of a subset of learned items on recall of the remaining items. In both experiments, the inhibitory effects were compared across three age groups: first or second graders, fourth graders, and young adults. The two children groups showed the same amounts of retrieval-induced forgetting and part-list cuing as the adult group, pointing to intact retrieval inhibition in young children’s episodic recall. These results parallel very recent results on older adults’ episodic recall, suggesting that both retrieval-induced forgetting and part-list cuing develop early in life and remain intact for the greater part of the lifespan.
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Part of the research reported in this article was presented at the 13th Meeting of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP, September 2003, Granada, Spain). It was supported by Grant FOR 448 from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to K.-H.B.
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Zellner, M., Bäuml, KH. Intact retrieval inhibition in children’s episodic recall. Memory & Cognition 33, 396–404 (2005). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193058
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193058