The spacing effect in free recall emerges with development

Abstract

In two experiments, children were shown a series of pictures of common objects and were asked to free recall which pictured objects had been presented. Some pictures were presented twice, with repetitions being either massed or spaced apart. Results indicated that preschoolers benefited from repetition but that they recalled massed and spaced repetitions equally well. In contrast, first-graders produced the typical spacing effect by recalling spaced repetitions better than they did massed repetitions. This finding that the spacing effect in free recall emerges with development suggests that the phenomenon cannot be explained solely in terms of a primitive encoding mechanism that is hard-wired into the memory system. Rather, an adequate account must include processes that are acquired or that develop during childhood. Further discussion focuses on implications of our findings for specific theories of the spacing effect and for the direction of future research. © 1984 Psychonomic Society, Inc.