O'Sullivan J T
Faculty of Education, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Canada.
J Exp Child Psychol. 1996 Jun;62(1):1-29. doi: 10.1006/jecp.1996.0020.
Developmental differences in children's metamemory about the influence of conceptual relations on free recall were examined. First, third, and fifth grade children memorized two lists of words, a two-category (items blocked by category) and an unrelated list. On both lists, four metamemory measures were obtained from each subject. These were estimates of recall performance, estimates of the cognitive effort associated with that recall performance, causal attributions about recall, and reports of strategy use. At each grade, subjects recalled more words on the related than the unrelated list and demonstrated reliable clustering at recall for the related words. Metamemory about the influence of conceptual relations was demonstrated at each grade level, but the nature of that metamemory changed with age. Even the youngest children realized that their recall performance would be superior on the related list but they did not understand how or why their recall was facilitated. With age, children attributed superior recall of the related material to the categorical relations in the stimuli, reported using categorical organization strategies, and demonstrated increasing awareness of the facilitative effects of conceptual relations on cognitive effort. Older children used their metamemory to direct their use of organizational strategies and to enhance recall on the related list. However, the four aspects of metamemory were not well coordinated at any grade level. The findings are discussed in terms of the importance of developing comprehensive, well-elaborated models of metamemory development.
本研究考察了儿童在元记忆方面关于概念关系对自由回忆影响的发展差异。研究选取了一年级、三年级和五年级的儿童，让他们记忆两组单词，一组是两类别的（按类别分组的项目），另一组是不相关的单词列表。对于这两组列表，从每个受试者那里获取了四种元记忆测量指标。这些指标包括对回忆表现的估计、与该回忆表现相关的认知努力的估计、关于回忆的因果归因以及策略使用的报告。在每个年级，受试者在相关列表上回忆出的单词比在不相关列表上更多，并且在回忆相关单词时表现出可靠的聚类。每个年级水平都表现出了关于概念关系影响的元记忆，但这种元记忆的性质随年龄而变化。即使是最小的儿童也意识到他们在相关列表上的回忆表现会更好，但他们不理解回忆是如何或为何得到促进的。随着年龄增长，儿童将对相关材料的更好回忆归因于刺激中的类别关系，报告使用了类别组织策略，并表现出对概念关系对认知努力促进作用的认识不断提高。年龄较大的儿童利用他们的元记忆来指导组织策略的使用，并提高在相关列表上的回忆。然而，在任何年级水平，元记忆的这四个方面都没有得到很好的协调。研究结果从发展全面、详尽的元记忆发展模型的重要性方面进行了讨论。
