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The roles of imagery, language, and metamemory in cross-modal transfer in children

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Summary

The relative strengths of association of imagery, language, and metamemory to cross-modal transfer were evaluated in 5-year-olds and 7-year-olds. Children were administered either tactual-visual or visual-tactual cross-modal transfer tasks, as well as two visual imagery tasks (spatial recall and mental rotation), two language competence tasks (vocabulary and word usage), metamemory questions, and a general intelligence task. With intelligence and handedness controlled, only visual imagery related significantly to cross-modal transfer. These findings suggest that mental imagery, as opposed to language competence or metamemory, is a principal component of cross-modal transfer, and they are consistent with the observation that preverbal human infants and infrahuman primates exhibit cross-modal transfer.

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  1. Department of Psychology, New York University, 6 Washington Place, Room 1065, 10003, New York, NY, USA

    Marian Stoltz-Loike & Marc H. Bornstein

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  1. Marian Stoltz-Loike
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  2. Marc H. Bornstein
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Stoltz-Loike, M., Bornstein, M.H. The roles of imagery, language, and metamemory in cross-modal transfer in children. Psychol. Res 49, 63–68 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00309204

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00309204

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