Strategies

Question 1

What are strategies?

Answer 1

Cognitive or behavioural mechanisms that enhance memory and are under the deliberate control of the subject

Question 2

How does the use of strategies change with age?

Answer 2

Children learn more strategies with age and learn how to use strategies more effectively with age

Question 3

When strategies are initially learned, they are used…

Answer 3

Rigidly - children only use strategies in some situations and can’t adapt to changes in task demands

Question 4

Name 4 strategies.

Answer 4

Searching
Rehearsal
Organising
Selective attention

Question 5

How do young children (18-24mo) use searching?

Answer 5

18-24mo infants can use searching to find Big Bird toy hidden under various objects (e.g. pointing, looking at location, saying the name of toy) (DeLoache et al., 1985)
Searching in young children is fragile and only used in most favourable circumstances

Question 6

What is rehearsal?

Answer 6

Repeating info to keep it in the STM; can do verbally or non-verbally

Question 7

At what age are children less likely to rehearse? At what age are they likely to rehearse?

Answer 7

<6/7yo less likely to rehearse - 10% of 5yo use rehearsal spontaneously, 60% 0f 7yo do, 85% of 10yo do (Flavell et al., 1966)

Question 8

Rehearsal requires mental effort. What does this mean?

How do we know this?

Answer 8

Rehearsal requires cognitive effort, especially in younger children
7/8yo children slowed finger-tapping more than 11yo when rehearsing a memory task (Guttentag, 1984)

Question 9

What is organising?

Answer 9

Organise info into format that is easier to recall (i.e. using categories)

Question 10

At what age are children less likely to organise? At what age are they likely to organise?

Answer 10

5/6yo less likely to organise than 9/10yo

Question 11

The transition from not organising to organising is…

Answer 11

abrupt, rapid

Question 12

Children as young as what age can learn to organise but don’t transfer this learning?

Answer 12

4/5yo

Question 13

What is trial-to-trial variability?

Answer 13

Use strategies on some trials but not others

Question 14

What is selective attention?

Answer 14

The process of selectively attending to relevant, goal-related info

Question 15

The ability to selectively attend greatly increased between what ages?

Answer 15

3yo and 8yo

Question 16

Children as young as what age can selectively attend?

Answer 16

4yo - selectively attend to toys after being told they will need to recall them later (Baker-Ward et al., 1984)

Question 17

Describe how children use selective attention with Miller’s 12 boxes.

Answer 17

6 boxes have toy animal inside and a picture of a cage on the front, 6 boxes have household object inside and a picture of a house on the front
Children told they must recall all toy animals or all household objects would only open these boxes
Younger children look in both types of boxes and don’t selectively attend

Question 18

What does developing the selective attention strategy involve?
How does this change with age?

Answer 18

Systematicity (systematically attending is an effective way of using attention)
8yo systematically attend more than 4yo (Vurpillot, 1968)

Question 19

What is the mediational-deficiency hypothesis for why younger children don’t use strategies?
Is this true?

Answer 19

Young children don’t use strategies because they wouldn’t improve recall (Reese, 1962)
This isn’t true - this doesn’t explain why children recall more after being taught strategies

Question 20

What is the production-deficiency hypothesis for why younger children don’t use strategies?
Is this true?

Answer 20

Young children choose not to use strategies even though they would improve recall (Flavell, 1970)
This isn’t true - this doesn’t explain why some younger children use strategies, or why trial-to-trial variability occurs

Question 21

What is the costs vs. benefits hypothesis for why younger children don’t use strategies?
Is this true?

Answer 21

Young children realise fewer benefits of strategies and strategies have greater costs (i.e. mental effort) for younger children, meaning costs in mental effort will impair performance in younger children
This seems true - increasing benefits (e.g. offering monetary reward) or decreasing cost (e.g. easy to rehearse material) means strategies are more likely to be used by young children

Question 22

What is the utilisation hypothesis for why younger children don’t use strategies?
Is this true?

Answer 22

Young children use strategies but don’t show improved recall because costs of strategies negate benefits
This seems true - decreasing cost (e.g. experimenter does part of strategy) means strategies are more helpful and more is recalled

Question 23

How do children know which strategies to use?

Answer 23

Using metacognitive knowledge