| Abstract: | 36 5- and 9-yr-olds and undergraduates were compared in a successive tachistoscopic recognition task in which size of the 1st array and the interval between the 1st array and the 2nd single recognition-test stimulus were varied. For all age groups, accuracy was highest at an interval of 250-1000 msec. At this interval, 5-yr-olds equalled older Ss' accuracy on single-item arrays but showed a significant decrement with increases in array size above 1 item, and they were inferior to older Ss on multiple-stimulus arrays. Nine-yr-olds showed a significant decrement with increases above 2 items, and adults showed small, nonsignificant decrements with increases in array size. Results of the yes-no task confirm previous findings of pointing recognition tasks that demonstrated age differences in short-term memory capacity. It is concluded that the observed differences cannot be attributed to age differences in report interference or retrieval strategies; rather, they appear to be due primarily to age differences in encoding processes, although differences in storage cannot be ruled out. Both groups of children showed a drop in performance at a 3-sec interval, but this drop was attributed to an inability to maintain attention rather than to storage characteristics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
