On Criteria of Organization for Memory Retrieval in Children

The purpose of the present study was to investigate developmental changes of criteria of organization in memory retrieval.Subjects were 38 5-year olds, 38 6-year olds, and 20 9-year oIds.Three criteria of organization were chosen as strategies for retrieval; perceptual (color), complementary (function, spatial and temporal contiguity), and conceptual.These were tested through the use of sets of picture cards, divided according to a standard and the three criteria.Main results were (1) the color criterion was consistently lowest in all children; (2) the complementary criterion was utilized most in 6-year olds;(3) 9-year olds utilized both the conceptual and the complementary criterion; and (4) the use of conceptual criterion increased with age.Results are discussed in terms of developmental changes in the utilization of criteria of organization at retrieval.Many recent studies have examined the organization of memory in children.They have shown that with increasing age, a change occurs in memory criteria from perceptual organization to conceptual organization.Some earlier studies have distinguished between organization in terms of input and output, but it is still not clear whether the source of the change in memory organization is located in input encording or output encording.Sophian and Hagen (1978) found that 4-and 5-year old children utilized increased conceptual organization with age in input, but both ages organized output in terms of concept rather than color (perceptual organization), regardless of the way in which they had sorted input.Melkman, Tversky and Baratz (1981) showed in children aged 4, 5 and 9 that encording processes in input undergo a perceptual-conceptual change (color-form-concept) with age, but in retrieval processes, conceptual organization was favored at all ages.These studies suggest that a change of criteria of organization occurs with age in input, but does not occur in output.Even younger children utilize conceptual organization as a criterion at retrieval.The present study is concerned with output.Typical criteria of organization which children utilized at retrieval were examined.And developmental changes of criteria of organization in memory retrieval were discussed.A complementary criterion of organization was added to the criteria of perceptual and conceptual