Personal and peers' word associations in relation to children's false recognition errors.

Attempted to show that false recognition errors would be more frequently elicited by children's personal associates to a set of target words than by associates based on peer norms; Ss were 80 White middle-class 2nd and 5th graders (mean ages, 7.6 and 10.6 yrs, respectively). In Session 1 Ss gave oral associations to 34 words. In the 1st phase of Session 2, target words were each read aloud once and Ss were required to memorize them; in the 2nd phase Ss worked for 5 min on a maze task to prevent rehearsal; and in the final phase, a 40-item recognition list was read. Ss determined whether a word was one they had been asked to remember. As predicted, responses occurred with decreasing frequency to target, personal, peer, and control words. Consistent with the expectation that personal associates would more frequently elicit false recognition errors than would peer associates, the difference between personal and control responses was larger than the difference between peer and control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)