Suggests that fuzzy-trace theory may replace dominant metaphors of cognitive development. Discusses theoretical climate of the 1980s when the theory was first formulated. Describes how, by integrating new ideas about how cognitive development was viewed into a coherent framework, the theory slowly gained acceptance as critical aspects of it were…

Fourier analyses of children's behaviors were conducted over a sequence of five consecutive study/recall trials to identify temporal patterns. Findings pointed to a global strategy in which children learn the items' categories before learning them individually. There was little qualitative difference in temporal organization for second graders and…

A negative transfer paradigm was used to assess kindergarten, third-, and sixth-grade children's use of category relations in lists presented for recall. Results showed that negative transfer effects increased with age, with kindergarten children showing no evidence of interference relative to a control group. (Author/MP)

Compares typicality effects in recall between good and poor junior high readers to determine the influence of knowledge base upon memory. Results suggest that poor readers have a different knowledge base for familiar categories than good readers and that cognitive differences between them are related to differences in their semantic memories.…

Free recall performance of children in grades three, five, seven, and nine and of adults was assessed according to a list of categorically related words. Results indicated that seventh and ninth graders were more apt to use associative relations to begin category clusters than were younger children or adults. (Author/BE)

This response to Brainerd and Reyna's paper (in this issue) argues that the common resources hypothesis can be applied to a wider range of phenomena than can the output-interference hypothesis. Presents results of a dual-task experiment under bidirectional deficits. Concludes that dual-task studies do not provide critical tests of the resources…

Fourth and seventh grade children received four free-recall trials on lists including typical and atypical items. Levels of recall and clustering increased with age and were greater for typical than for atypical items. More older children used organizational strategies to facilitate recall. (SKC)

Results suggest that when memory strategies are used by young children, the mental effort expended on implementing the mnemonic reduces the amount of mental capacity available for other activities, resulting in only modest gains in memory performance. (PCB)

Examined developmental differences in the acquisition and extension of an organizational strategy in 2 experiments involving 242 children in grades 3, 4, 5, and 7. Levels of performance were greater for sets of typical items than for sets of atypical items at all grade levels. (RJC)