Effects of Retrieval Cues on Children's Recall following Free- or Cued-Recall Instructions

Abstract

40 third and 40 sixth graders were given a task in which recall items, e.g., monkey, were presented with highly related picture cues, e.g., zoo. Cued recall produced higher recall than a free-recall procedure when Ss were told initially recall would be tested in the presence of cues, but the cued- vs free-recall difference was not statistically reliable when Ss were initially instructed merely to memorize the items. It appears that Ss made use of storage cues, without being specifically instructed to do so, if they knew that these cues would be present during retrieval.