Sex differences in the relationship of recall to subvocal speech in preschool children.
Previous research findings indicating that preschool-age boys use verbal means to encode pictorial material whereas preschool-age girls do not were further investigated. Detailed examinations were made of the polygraph tracings and serial position curves of recall of younger (mean age = 50 months) and older (mean age = 66 months) boys and girls. The older boys were different than the other sex by age groups in that their recall and subvocal speech scores were significantly correlated; they engaged in greater amounts of raw EMG activity on both high-labial and low-labial trials; and they recalled only a small per cent of the names of pictures they did not subvocalize. Analysis of the serial position curves of recall revealed a greater recency effect for older boys and a greater primary effect for older girls. These data strongly support the notion that girls as young as 5 and 6 years of age are using other than verbal means to encode information, whereas boys similar in age are highly reliant upon verbal encoding methods.
D000367:Age Factors; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004576:Electromyography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D011939:Mental Recall; D011601:Psychophysics; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D014705:Verbal Behavior
Mem Cognit. 1977 Nov;5(6):615-22
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