Effects of age and stimulus structure on serial learning

Investigated the ability of 4th, 6th, and 8th graders to use structures inherent in a list of permuted symbols. The structures were defined in terms of Piagetian theory, and the sequential stimuli were drawn from previous research. The 240 Ss, 120 males and 120 females equally divided among the 3 gr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Developmental psychology 1974-01, Vol.10 (1), p.29-32
Main Author: Bruce, A. Jerry
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age Differences
Human
Serial Learning
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Investigated the ability of 4th, 6th, and 8th graders to use structures inherent in a list of permuted symbols. The structures were defined in terms of Piagetian theory, and the sequential stimuli were drawn from previous research. The 240 Ss, 120 males and 120 females equally divided among the 3 grades, were each given 2 lists, 1 random and 1 structured, and were administered 8 serial anticipation trials with each list. The dependent variable was the total number of correct anticipations over the 8 trials. The analysis of variance performed on these data revealed structure to be increasingly facilitative with age, with the less complex structures being more facilitative. Results support the theoretical notion that environmental event structure facilitates learning.
ISSN:0012-1649
1939-0599
DOI:10.1037/h0035539