Effects of delays on 6-year-old children’s self-generation and retention of knowledge through integration

Abstract

The present research was an investigation of the effect of delay on self-generation and retention of knowledge derived through integration by 6-year-old children. Children were presented with novel facts from passages read aloud to them (stem facts) and tested for self-generation of new knowledge through integration of the facts. In Experiment 1, children integrated the stem facts at Session 1 and retained the self-generated memory traces over 1 week. In Experiment 2, 1-week delays were imposed either between the to-be-integrated facts (between-stem delay) or after the stem facts but before the test (before-test delay). Integration performance was diminished in both conditions. Moreover, memory for individual stem facts was lower in Experiment 2 than in Experiment 1, suggesting that self-generation through integration promoted memory for explicitly taught information. The results indicate the importance of tests for promoting self-generation through integration as well as for retaining newly self-generated and explicitly taught information.

Semantic Elaboration through Integration: Hints Both Facilitate and Inform the Process

“…The stimuli were the same six novel ''stem'' facts used in prior related research Bauer & San Souci, 2010;Varga & Bauer, 2013). All facts were accurate and determined to be novel to children in the target age range.…”

“…As noted, children only received recognition questions for items that were not generated in the open-ended format, and thus, the maximum total score was also 3. 1 1 In prior related research Bauer & San Souci, 2010;Varga & Bauer, 2013), we have scored children's recall and recognition of the stem facts presented in the context of the passages of text and then analyzed relations between recall and total performance for the stem facts and self-generation and recognition of the integration facts. Memory for stem facts has been shown to be necessary but not sufficient for self-generation and recognition of integration facts.…”

“…Specifically, when delays are imposed either between episodes or between presentation of related episodes and the test for integration of them, incidence of self-generation of new knowledge declines (Varga & Bauer, 2013). In a condition in which 6-year-olds were exposed to one passage of text and then experienced a 1-week delay before exposure to the related passage (between-stem delay), level of self-generation of new knowledge through integration was only 23% (compared with 67% in Bauer & San Souci, 2010, in which no delays were imposed).…”

“…In the present research, the specific question we addressed was how the timing of delivery of hints to integration affected self-generation performance. As argued in Varga and Bauer (2013), there are two points at which integration might occur and lead to self-generation of new knowledge. One point at which integration might occur is immediately upon experience of related information.…”

“…We based the prediction on the principle of cognitive economy (Wyer & Srull, 1986) and on findings from Varga and Bauer (2013) that suggested that a demand to integrate was necessary for generation of new knowledge. As noted earlier, Varga and Bauer found that the incidence of self-generation of new knowledge was low in a condition in which a delay was imposed between the presentation of to-be-integrated information (stem facts) and the test for integration of them (before-test delay condition).…”