Abstract
A serial recall task was used to investigate the role of encoding and retention in early age differences in recall. Two age groups of preschool children (3 years 3 months and 4 years 9 months) were tested. Older children shown greater improvements over trials than younger children, but the two age groups showed comparable declines in performance over the testing sequence. It was concluded that increases in the rate of encoding of information in memory contribute to early improvements in recall, but rate of forgetting is relatively invariant.
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This research was supported by grants from the graduate school of the University of Minnesota, NICHHD (HD11776), and the University of Minnesota’s Center for Research in Human Learning grants from NICHHD (HD01136) and NSF (BNS-75-03816). The research was carried out while Catherine Sophian was supported by an NIMH training grant (USPHS Grant 1T32-HD07109-1) to the Developmental Psychology Program at the University of Michigan.
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Sophian, C., Perlmutter, M. Encoding and retention factors in the early development of recall. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 15, 342–344 (1980). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334552
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334552