Developmental differences in schema dependency for temporally ordered story events

This research project was undertaken to investigate whether temporally ordered story events would be recalled in logical sequence as opposed to presentation order by various ages and under various task conditions. A 24-hour delayed condition was used as well as immediate recall. Six-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and adults were asked to recall four narratives. Instructions given were either vague or specifically required subjects to recall events exactly as they had been presented. Following the delayed recall, a picture-sequencing task was adminstered to assess whether picture cues would enable subjects to demonstrate awareness of input order even though they had reordered events in recall. All subjects reordered more during the delayed recall than during the immediate recall. Age differences (p<0003) occurred in the ability of subjects to demonstrate verbatim memory on the picture-sequencing task. Findings suggest that in contrast to adults, once children have reordered narrative events in memory, they no longer have an alternative verbatim version available. Results also suggest a greater schema dependency in children than in adults in recall tasks.