Visiting the wizard: children's memory for a recurring event.
The development of children's scripts for a recurring event was examined. 24 girls--2.5, 4, and 5.5 years of age--repeatedly experienced an initially novel episode (a trip to the "wizard's room") in a laboratory setting. Based on parents' ratings, the episode was defined as consisting of 26 actions organized into 7 activities. The sequential, spatial, and causal relations among the activities remained constant across episodes. Each child's knowledge of the recurring event was assessed by 4 probe conditions: free recall, prop reenactment, in-context reenactment, and in-context deviations. Results support conclusions that during early stages of script formation: (a) more actions and activities are included with age in children's scripts, (b) causally related activities are sequenced at all ages but temporal ordering is age-related, (c) hierarchical organization of actions within activities emerges gradually over the preschool years, and (d) probe conditions strongly influence performance for the younger but not for the older children.
Price
D W
DW
Department of Psychology, Wheaton College, Norton, MA 02766.
Goodman
G S
GS
D002675:Child, Preschool; D003210:Concept Formation; D003463:Cues; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D011939:Mental Recall; D011340:Problem Solving; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D012931:Social Environment