Reactivating preschool children's memory for the location of hidden objects

Gauthier, Robert Benoit (1993) Reactivating preschool children's memory for the location of hidden objects. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

[English] PDF (Migrated (PDF/A Conversion) from original format: (application/pdf)) - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. Download (7MB) [English] PDF - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. (Original Version)

Abstract

There is little research regarding the amount of information that three-year-old children can retain and the length of time that they can retain it. In a task in which three-year-olds retained the locations of hidden objects, subjects were given a reactivation treatment to determine if the reminder would facilitate recall. An additional question was whether having input into where objects were hidden would facilitate recall. Ninety children learned the location of 16 objects hidden in a room. One-half of the children determined which object to hide in each of the pre-selected locations (self-generated condition), and the experimenter determined which object to hide at each location for the remaining children (experimenter-generated condition). For both the self- and experimenter-generated conditions, one-third of the children were visited three weeks after acquisition at which time they saw the 16 objects (reactivation treatment). Another one-third were returned to the experimental room but did not see the objects (partial-reactivation treatment). The remaining one-third of the children were visited again only at final testing (control treatment). All subjects were tested for recall of the 16 object-location pairings 4 weeks after initial learning. Results showed no significant differences due to reactivation or generation conditions.

Actions (login required)

View Item