Developmental Differences in the Timing of Children's Awareness of Category Relations in Free Recall

Abstract

Second-third and sixth grade children were presented with sets of categoricallyrelated pictures for free recall, but unexpectedly asked, just prior to recall, whether they had noticed in the set any 'groups, pictures that were alike or went together in some way'. Children's latencies to identify their first categories were recorded. Second-third grade children in a standard condition took significantly longer to identify their first categories than did second-third grade children who were prompted to identify categories at time of item presentation. There were no differences in latencies to identify categories between prompted and non-prompted subjects at the sixth grade level. Results were interpreted as reflecting developmental differences in the timing of organization in children's free recall.