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Updated: Jun 25, 2026

Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm
Published on: April 28, 2016
The spacing effect in intentional and incidental free recall by children and adults: Limits on the automaticity
Thomas C Toppino1, Melodie D Fearnow-Kenney, Marissa H Kiepert
1Department of Psychology, Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania 19085, USA. thomas.toppino@villanova.edu
Abstract:
Preschoolers, elementary school children, and college students exhibited a spacing effect in the free recall of pictures when learning was intentional. When learning was incidental and a shallow processing task requiring little semantic processing was used during list presentation, young adults still exhibited a spacing effect, but children consistently failed to do so. Children, however, did manifest a spacing effect in incidental learning when an elaborate semantic processing task was used. These results limit the hypothesis that the spacing effect in free recall occurs automatically and constrain theoretical accounts of why the spacing between repetitions affects recall performance.
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