Strategies Flashcards
What are strategies?
Cognitive or behavioural mechanisms that enhance memory and are under the deliberate control of the subject
How does the use of strategies change with age?
Children learn more strategies with age and learn how to use strategies more effectively with age
When strategies are initially learned, they are used…
Rigidly - children only use strategies in some situations and can’t adapt to changes in task demands
Name 4 strategies.
Searching
Rehearsal
Organising
Selective attention
How do young children (18-24mo) use searching?
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
What is rehearsal?
Repeating info to keep it in the STM; can do verbally or non-verbally
At what age are children less likely to rehearse? At what age are they likely to rehearse?
<6/7yo less likely to rehearse - 10% of 5yo use rehearsal spontaneously, 60% 0f 7yo do, 85% of 10yo do (Flavell et al., 1966)
Rehearsal requires mental effort. What does this mean?
How do we know this?
Rehearsal requires cognitive effort, especially in younger children
7/8yo children slowed finger-tapping more than 11yo when rehearsing a memory task (Guttentag, 1984)
What is organising?
Organise info into format that is easier to recall (i.e. using categories)
At what age are children less likely to organise? At what age are they likely to organise?
5/6yo less likely to organise than 9/10yo
The transition from not organising to organising is…
abrupt, rapid
Children as young as what age can learn to organise but don’t transfer this learning?
4/5yo
What is trial-to-trial variability?
Use strategies on some trials but not others
What is selective attention?
The process of selectively attending to relevant, goal-related info
The ability to selectively attend greatly increased between what ages?
3yo and 8yo
Children as young as what age can selectively attend?
4yo - selectively attend to toys after being told they will need to recall them later (Baker-Ward et al., 1984)
Describe how children use selective attention with Miller’s 12 boxes.
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
What does developing the selective attention strategy involve?
How does this change with age?
Systematicity (systematically attending is an effective way of using attention)
8yo systematically attend more than 4yo (Vurpillot, 1968)
What is the mediational-deficiency hypothesis for why younger children don’t use strategies?
Is this true?
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
What is the production-deficiency hypothesis for why younger children don’t use strategies?
Is this true?
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
What is the costs vs. benefits hypothesis for why younger children don’t use strategies?
Is this true?
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
What is the utilisation hypothesis for why younger children don’t use strategies?
Is this true?
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
How do children know which strategies to use?
Using metacognitive knowledge
