Developmental Differences in Children's Production and Recall of Information as a Function of Computer Presentational Features

Abstract

Developmental differences in children's production and recall of computer-presented information was examined at varying levels of action and verbal labels when presented in list or story conditions. Forty children, equally distributed by grades kindergarten and second, were randomly assigned to a list or story condition. Within each condition, the same twenty-four objects (six sets of four objects) were presented with or without action and verbal labels. Kindergartners were more responsive to, and dependent upon, action and verbal labels for their production and recall of object names than were second graders. Results suggest a developmental shift from feature-dependence to feature-independence in children's computer information processing activities.