Abstract

The study of 120 4-year-old, 120 7-year-old children, investigated children's memory performance in relation to developmental changes knowledge structure, emergent strategy use, and social context. In 2 experiments, picture of items from two types of categories-slot-filler and taxonomic-were used. Experiment 1 contrasted three instruction conditions : Simple remembering, sorting pictures, and directions for strategy use. Experiment 2 provided three social interaction conditions : alone, with a peer, and an adult "expert." In Experiment 1 the younger children demonstrated better recall, clustering and shorter latencies for the slot-filler than the taxonomic list, while the 7-year-olds showed no such differences. Younger children performed better with sorting instruction than with simple remembering instruction on the slot-filler but not. the taxonomic list, again demonstrating the importance of slot-filler relations in item recovery. The results of Experiment 2 showed that all children benefitted from expert guidance on both types of lists. Younger children recalled more in the child-child condition than alone, suggesting the shared knowledge is a central feature of social interaction. Cultural attitudes toward learning may also influence performance.