Young children’s recognition as a function of the spacing of repetitions and the type of study and test stimuli

Abstract

Preschool and second-grade children studied a list of either pictures or their corresponding labels (words) and, 48 h later, received a yes/no recognition test involving either the same or the opposite type of stimuli. Some items on the study list were presented twice, with repetitions either massed or distributed (spaced). The results indicated that, when both study and test stimuli were pictures, the children’s recognition was better than when study and/or test stimuli were words. The children also recognized distributed repetitions better than massed repetitions (a spacing effect). However, the spacing effect was not altered by the type of stimuli presented for study and/or test. The results suggest that the spacing effect is mediated by a semantic representation and that, under these circumstances, it is produced by relatively automatic processes. © 1993, Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.