Recent studies established that making concurrent judgments of learning (JOLs) can significantly alter (typically enhance) memory itself--a "reactivity" effect. The current study recruited 190 Chinese children (M[subscript age] = 8.68 years; 101 female) in 2020 and 2021 to explore the reactivity effect on children's learning, its…

This is the first reported study of children's use of two metacognitive strategies, recollection rejection and diagnostic monitoring, to reject misinformation. Recollection rejection involves the retrieval of details that disqualify an event, whereas diagnostic monitoring involves the failure to retrieve expected details. First (n = 56, age…

This study explored under what conditions young children would set reminders to aid their memory for delayed intentions. A computerized task requiring participants to carry out delayed intentions under varying levels of cognitive load was presented to 63 children (aged between 6.9 and 13.0 years old). Children of all ages demonstrated…

Previous research has suggested that fluency does not influence memory decisions until ages 7-8. In two experiments (n = 96 and n = 64, respectively), children, aged 4, 6, and 8 years (Experiments 1 and 2), and adults (Experiment 2) studied a list of pictures. Participants completed a recognition test during which each study item was preceded by a…

Research on the development of metamemory has focused primarily on children's understanding of the variables that influence how likely a person is to remember something. But metamemory also involves an understanding of why people occasionally misremember things. In this study, 5- and 6-year-olds (N = 38) were asked to decide whether another…

In two studies, four- but not three-year olds understood that (1) of two characters who saw an object, the one who waited longer before attempting to find it would not remember where it was; and (2) of two objects seen by a character, the object seen long ago would be forgotten and the object seen recently would be remembered. (BC)

Investigated children's causal-explanatory conceptions of the workings of a labeling strategy. The 72 children of four-six years showed two types of conceptions, both of which increased with age. (RJC)

Examined concepts of mental activities involved in acts of knowing in 54 children of 8-10 years and adults. Ten-year-olds and adults judged memory involvement to be the most important relation among mental activities. Eight-year-olds judged comprehension and attention according to the involvement of visual or verbal information. (RJC)

Acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of organizational strategies were studied in two experiments as a function of impulsivity-reflectivity and metamemory among primary school students. Findings are in line with the hypothesis that metamemory, rather than cognitive tempo, mediates the effectiveness of an experimenter-trained strategy in…

Studies the allocation of attention of 100 four- and five-year-olds on a selective attention task. Results suggest that preschoolers are capable of using selective strategies when the task is made meaningful by the inclusion of a familiar script that provides supportive cognitive context. (RJC)

Investigates children's understanding of combined effects of different variables influencing memory. Preschoolers, second graders, fourth graders, and adults predicted how many items a depicted character could recall in several memory situations that were produced by factorially crossing three levels of "items to-be-remembered" with…

Five experiments compared metamemory abilities in 6- to 9-year olds with autism, mentally retarded children, and normal controls. Found that children with autism were not impaired on any of the metamemory tasks, although they were less likely than controls to make spontaneous use of memory strategies involving other people. Unexpectedly few…

Examines preschool children's ability for advance planning and mishap prevention or remediation related to familiar events. Indicates that children three to five years old appear to use general event knowledge in constructing verbal plans. However, developmental differences in the quality of plans suggests that the ability of using general…

Examined qualitative developmental change in the use of category organization between ages 8 and 10 and the supportive functions of task environment and category knowledge in this development. Results support the hypothesis that most 10 year olds are capable of strategically activating category knowledge in appropriate task environments when items…

Second and fourth graders were classified according to their knowledge of soccer and their IQ and given two sort-recall tasks. Results demonstrated that the knowledge base played an important role in children's memory. Domain knowledge could not fully eliminate the effects of IQ on sort-recall tasks using domain-related materials. (GLR)