Comprehension and production of standard and Black English by lower-class Black children.

72 lower-class kindergartners, 3rd graders, and 6th graders were given grammatical contrasts and production tests. Ss had to comprehend stimulus sentences with contrasting grammatical characteristics in Black English and standard English and had to spontaneously produce sentences when shown stimulus pictures. Results indicate that comprehension of both easy and hard contrasts in Black and standard English decreased significantly with age. The results, though, may only be applicable to older children, since young children seemed to be heavily influenced by semantic factors. The results are consistent with previous results suggesting that Black children "code switch," although the effect of semantic constraints on young Black English speakers needs to be further investigated. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of strategies for recall and recognition.

40 kindergartners, 42 3rd graders, and 40 5th graders (CA's 5 yrs, 5 mo; 8 yrs, 3 mo; and 12 yrs, 4 mo, respectively) viewed 30 pictures of familiar objects, and then their free recall of the object names and their recognition of the original pictures were tested. The recognition test included pairing each picture with another similar picture of the same object. Half the Ss in each age group were prepared for recall with a strategy known to improve it in adults, and half were prepared for recognition with a strategy known to improve recognition in adults. Children encoded the stimuli differentially in accordance with the expected memory task and retrieved different stored information for each task. Both free recall and picture recognition memory improved with age. The recall strategy improved free recall performance at all ages, but the recognition strategy improved recognition performance only at the oldest age tested. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory organization during children's repeated recall.

Presented a list of categorically related words to 20 2nd graders and 20 6th graders in a memory test. Multiple recall tests followed the initial presentation of words so that changes in memory organization could be assessed over recall attempts. Ss in both grades remembered many new words on later recall trials that they had not remembered on Trial 1. The proportions of new words recalled and the retrieval characteristics of these words were similar in both grades. Younger Ss, however, forgot many words during repeated recall, and older Ss did not. Different patterns of forgetting were correlated with different types of organizational strategies. Second graders recalled words in a sequential, rote manner with few transformations or rearrangements of words. Sixth graders, on the other hand, actively constructed larger categories or chunks of words over recall attempts. The spontaneous reconstruction of remembered information by 6th graders is interpreted as a manifestation of constructive memory-monitoring skills. Some potential advantages of a repeated recall paradigm for developmental research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How much and how fast: Rapid processing of spoken language in later adulthood.

Conducted 2 experiments, using 36 older adults (aged 61–82 yrs) and 24 undergraduates, in which Ss listened to and immediately recalled sentences that were systematically varied in speech rate and number of propositions. Although recall performance of the older Ss showed a disproportionate decline when speech rate was increased, older Ss, as well as the younger Ss, were able to recall sentences of increasing propositional densities. It was also found that the tendency to recall a greater proportion of main ideas than details (the levels effect) was enhanced by increased propositional density and depressed by increased speech rate and increased age. These results are discussed in terms of an age-related change in the rate at which information can be processed in working memory. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental differences in organization and recall: Training in the use of organizational techniques.

Used an alternating sort-recall procedure in 3 experiments to train 204 elementary school children in the use of organizational techniques as memory aids. All Ss sorted a group of words into 2–7 categories, and some Ss were required to learn the sorting patterns generated by adults. In Exp I, the semantic sophistication of a S's sorting style predicted recall performance. Further, the tendency to improve memory performance as a result of being constrained to adult sorting patterns varied with age; constrained 5th graders significantly improved their recall, whereas the recall of 3rd and 7th grade Ss was not affected by this training. However, more detailed organizational training in Exp II facilitated the recall of 3rd graders. In Exp II, it was found that the constraining procedure was not necessary for facilitation to be observed. Rather, instructions to group words on the basis of meaning were sufficient to produce improved recall. Further, improvements in sorting style accompanied all significant changes in recall. Findings are discussed in terms of a discrepancy between the information which a child has in permanent memory and that which he uses spontaneously in the context of a memorization task. The importance of input organization as a mediating factor in memory performance and development is suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's judgments and attributions in response to the "mentally retarded" label: A developmental approach.

140 3rd graders, 188 6th graders, and 97 9th graders viewed a videotape in which a child failed a puzzle task. All of the Ss had identical information about the child's achievement scores and puzzle ability, but half were told that the child was mentally retarded. Consistent with key person perception and social cognition findings, the traitlike retarded label had little impact on younger Ss but strong effects on older Ss. Like adults in earlier research, 6th and 9th graders saw low effort as a less important cause of failure for the retarded than for the unlabeled child, and they saw less need to urge the retarded child to persist. Correlations showed no evidence of logical linkages among attributions, expectancies, and persistence-urging among 3rd graders, but strong linkages among 6th and 9th graders. Findings suggest that label effects are mediated by cognitive processes dependent on developmental level. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's recall of television material: Effects of presentation mode and adult labeling.

Preschoolers, kindergartners, and 3rd and 4th graders viewed an edited prosocial cartoon in 1 of 4 viewing conditions that changed program features and introduced viewing information to aid recognition and structuring of central plot information. Older Ss recalled more total information; Ss who had viewed with an experimenter recalled more material than did Ss in other viewing conditions. Visual presentation enhanced central recall. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in integrated semantic memory.

Used J. D. Bransford and J. J. Franks's (1971) paradigm of linguistic abstraction to examine age differences in the nature of stored semantic information. 20 young (mean age 18.7 yrs) and 18 old adults (mean age 67.3 yrs) served as Ss. Specifically, age differences on 2 dimensions of memory were examined: (a) integration of related content from separate sentences and (b) retention of precise semantic content. Young and old Ss were not found to differ in the precision of retained semantic information. Furthermore, while both age groups evidenced integration of information as indexed by a strong linear trend of recognition rate across sentence complexity, this trend did not interact with age, supporting the idea that both age groups showed comparable integration of linguistic information into holistic ideas. Implications for current conceptualizations of age differences in memory are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A picture is not always worth a thousand words: Pictures as distractors in reading.

Conducted 2 studies with a total of 32 2nd graders and 66 3rd graders to examine the influence of pictures in the periphery on children's speed and accuracy of reading. In both studies, Ss were required to read sets of words under each of 3 conditions: with no pictures, with related pictures, and with unrelated pictures. The 2 studies differed in the age of the Ss (2nd vs 3rd graders) and in the location of the pictures (behind vs above the words). In both studies, the results consistently show the following: (a) The words were read more slowly whenever pictures were present. (b) Unrelated pictures produced more interference than related pictures. (c) The magnitude of both of these effects was inversely related to reading ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lexical access in children and adults.

Investigated the retrieval of words from lexical memory in 12 kindergartners, 11 1st graders, 11 3rd graders, and 11 graduate students. Ss named color slides depicting 100 stimulus pictures. Picture-naming latency was the dependent variable. Results of multiple-regression analyses indicate that the codability of pictorial representations of a concept and the frequency of the concept's label contributed to the prediction of naming latency. The effects of these sociolinguistic variables were relatively constant across all age groups. Results support a model of vocabulary growth in which the lexicons of both children and adults in a language community are internally structured and accessed along parameters that reflect the salience of concepts and linguistic events in the environment. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Text variations at the level of the individual sentence and the comprehension of simple expository paragraphs.

In Exps I, II, V, and VI, 274 4th–6th graders chose titles and wrote summary sentences for simple expository paragraphs. Ss did not utilize the information in topic sentences as effectively as did 116 undergraduates (Exps II and IV), but their performance improved when the topic sentence was highlighted. All Ss were better able to detect sentences that conformed neither to the paragraph's general nor specific topic than sentences conforming only to the general topic. The canonical topic comment form made deviant sentences more difficult to detect, as did the introduction of collocational ties, indicating that text variations at the level of individual sentences affected the evaluation of information that did not conform to the overall paragraph structure. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental differences in the memory search of categorized lists.

16 right-handed female 3rd and 6th graders were tested in a recognition memory task with short lists of items from 1 or 2 categories. Latency data for 1-category lists of letters or digits were consistent with a serial-exhaustive model of memory search for both groups. It was also found that the younger Ss searched these lists more slowly. For 2-category lists, developmental differences were found in Ss' ability to use the category information to facilitate information retrieval. Although the category information was very salient for Ss of both ages, only the 6th graders were able to use it to modify their memory search. It was noted that the 6th graders' 2-category data were consistent with a particular nonexhaustive search strategy, the random entry model, which has previously been identified by M. J. Naus et al (see record 1973-06031-001) for adult Ss. The similarity of the 3rd graders' memory search for 1- and 2-category lists suggests that young children do not systematically use information that they have available in permanent memory to facilitate their performance in memory search. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Factors influencing rule discovery in children.

Reports on 2 studies using the Esper paradigm to determine development of rule application and discovery capabilities. This paradigm employs both learning and generalization phases. In Exp I with 48 3rd and 4th graders, it was determined that Ss could learn and generalize when rule and structure were provided, but there was little evidence of rule discovery. In Exp II with 48 different 3rd and 4th graders, memory and attention manipulations were added. Both manipulations facilitated learning, but only attention facilitated rule discovery. In both studies 4th graders performed better than 3rd graders on generalization but not learning. The relationship between performance on the Esper and Raven Coloured Progressive Matrices (given to all Ss), although inconsistent, when covaried out removed the significant grade but not experimental effects. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic priming during sentence processing by young and older adults.

Examined semantic processing of sentences by 30 younger (mean age 25.1 yrs) and 30 older (mean age 68.5 yrs) adults, using a priming technique. Ss read a sentence and then made a lexical decision about a target presented immediately after the sentence. For both age groups, word targets that were instruments implied by the action of the sentence had faster latencies than unrelated word targets. There was no evidence of inhibition of unrelated targets, suggesting that the facilitation of instrument targets involved automatic processes. Results provide no evidence for age-related changes in semantic processing of sentences, including access to implied information. Older Ss did, however, have poorer memory for the sentences on a recognition test. It is suggested that previous findings by G. Cohen (see PA, Vols 63:747 and 67:958) of age deficits in comprehension may depend on techniques that measure what is remembered rather than what is understood. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult age differences in impressio change processes.

Three experiments examined the factors influencing impression change in young and older adults. In each study, Ss formed an impression of a fictitious target person and then read additional behavioral information that varied in its consistency with this initial impression. On the basis of previous work, older adults were expected to be less likely than younger adults to integrate new, inconsistent information in the schema-based memory representation, which would result in less impression change. No support for this prediction was found; instead, young and older adults varied in their weighting of different types of information (e.g., negative behaviors), which subsequently affected their impressions and memory for specific behavioral information. These results highlight the importance of considering the impact of age differences in implicit theories about behavior on social cognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of sentence complexity on the reading comprehension of syntactic structures.

Studied the effects of sentence complexity on reading comprehension of the Minimal Distance Principle (MDP), a general psycholinguistic principle, in 102 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. Ss were asked to identify subordinate clause subjects of sentences in a 2 * 2 factorial study with 2 levels of MDP (conforming and violating) and complexity (following and interrupting statements). Significant main effects were found for MDP (conforming sentences were easier) and complexity (following statements were easier). The MDP and complexity variables formed a significant interaction. The MDP-violating sentences produced performance characteristic of short-term memory tasks, making complex sentences, which separate subject and subordinate clause by several words, difficult to process. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's attributions for failure and success in different aspects of reading.

Investigated the attributions of 82 3rd graders and 82 6th graders for their success and failure in different reading situations with an extended set of causes (as a function of age and achievement differences). Ss were split into good and poor readers on the basis of a median split on the Reading Comprehension subtest of the California Test of Basic Skills. Ss reading achievement was then assessed in 2 reading situations (evaluation of reading performance and reading for meaning). Ss were asked to rate the degree to which each of 6 causes (ability, paying attention, studying, luck, task difficulty, and assistance from others) was responsible for their success or failure. Findings show that 6th graders' locus of control scores varied across situations, while 3rd graders' scores did not. Studying and paying attention were salient to Ss as causes. Age and achievement interacted, with low-achieving 3rd graders giving higher ratings to causes more clearly beyond their control than high-achieving 3rd graders, whereas low- and high-achieving 6th graders did not differ. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory integration and memory interference.

S. D. Moesser (see PA, Vol 56:3437; 1977) found that Ss presented with a nonsequential order of interrelating sentences did not show any evidence of having integrated these sentences into composite units. This type of presentation procedure also produces an interference effect that lessens the probability of retrieving information from the presented sentences. However, J. Bransford and J. Franks (see record 1972-24191-001) reported that Ss presented with a nonsequential order of interrelating sentences automatically integrate the partial ideas into holistic units. Bransford and Franks based their conclusions on the facts that (1) Ss were unable to identify the exact exemplars that were presented, and (2) Ss showed a bias in choosing more complex sentences as having been part of the acquisition corpus. Two experiments are reported here, which were conducted with 124 Newfoundland college students who participated in 1 of 2 encoding conditions while performing forced-choice or confidence recognition tasks. Results show that both the failure to identify presented exemplars and the tendency to choose more complex sentences in the test corpus were products of the retrieval interference effect. Findings fail to support the proposal that Ss will automatically integrate related ideas into composite units. (French abstract) (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory for pictures: Does an age-related decline exist?

Examined the effects of varying detail on memory. In Exp I, pictorial embellishment was varied by presenting 27 Ss aged 60+ yrs and 30 undergraduates with normal photographs, high-contrast photographs, or line drawings, and testing their memory immediately and 4 wks later. All of the Ss did best with the most elaborate pictures (normal photographs), and old Ss remembered as well as young at the immediate but not at the delayed interval. In Exp II, with 21 old Ss and 21 18–36 yr olds, detail was varied by adding background to line drawings of a central object. Ss of both ages profited from enhanced background detail, and there were no differences in memory as a function of age. Exp III replicated Exp II, except that Ss (10 elderly and 17 college students) studied the pictures under divided attention conditions. Again, Ss of both ages recognized elaborate pictures best, and no significant age differences emerged. Results suggest that old and young adults profit from visual embellishment and that memory for meaningful pictures remains relatively intact with age. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)