Nonstrategic facilitation of children's recall: evidence of triage with semantically related information

When children and adults recall unrelated materials, they tend to produce words in a weaker memory strength-->stronger memory strength-->weaker memory strength order (the cognitive triage effect). This pattern is associated with recall accuracy. The present research investigates whether similar patterns occur when children recall lists of semantically related words that support the use of mnemonic organizational strategies. The optimization model predicts triage patterns regardless of list composition; the classic strategy model predicts categorical organization of recall for categorically composed lists. In Experiment 1, fourth and seventh graders recalled lists of typical and atypical exemplars from several different categories. In Experiment 2, second and sixth graders recalled lists of categorized or unrelated words. In both experiments, children's recall followed triage patterns based on on-line assessments of memory strength (error/success histories). Analyses of recall order, memory strength grouping, and the correlation between strength grouping and recall accuracy in both experiments supported the conclusion that children order their recall according to on-line memory strength, regardless of list composition.