Going Beyond the Facts: Young Children Extend Knowledge by Integrating Episodes

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Patricia Bauer, Emory University; Priscilla San Souci, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2010-12
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Publication Version: Author Accepted Manuscript (After Peer Review)
• Copyright Statement: © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
• License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2010.05.012
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
• ISSN: 0022-0965
• Volume: 107
• Issue: 4
• Start Page: 452
• End Page: 465
• Grant/Funding Information: This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH, HD57291, to Patricia J. Bauer).
• Research Categories: Psychology, General

Abstract

The major question posed in this research was whether 4- and 6-year-old children productively extend their knowledge by integrating information acquired in separate episodes. The vehicle was a read-aloud activity during which children were presented with a novel fact in each of two passages. In Experiment 1, both age groups showed evidence of integration between the passages. For 6-year-olds, the evidence came in the form of responses to open-ended questions. Four-year-olds recognized the correct answers, but did not generate them in the open-ended question format. The 6-year-olds who generated the correct answers also were likely to recall both of the individual facts presented in the passages. In Experiment 2, we tested whether 4-year-olds’ integration performance would improve if their memory for the individual facts improved. Extra exposure to the individual facts resulted in higher levels of integration performance in both recall and recognition testing. The roles of memory and other potential sources of age-related differences in integration performance are discussed.