Prompting and Rehearsal in Short-Term Memory

HAGEN, JOHN W.; HARGRAVE, SUSAN; and Ross, WILLIAM. Prompting and Rehearsal in ShortTerm Memory. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1973, 44, 201-204. The effects of induced verbal rehearsal and prompting were studied in a short-term recall test in 2 groups of children with mean ages of 5-9 and 7-4. The stimuli were cards depicting animals. 7 cards were presented sequentially per trial for 21 trials. Half the Ss were required to rehearse the names of the animals and were prompted when needed; the remaining Ss rehearsed but received no prompting. A recall test in which no rehearsal was required was administered one week later. Recall improved when rehearsal was employed, but only when prompting was provided. Recall was affected by rehearsal at the younger age level only. No change in recall was found 1 week after initial testing.