Long-term memory and retrieval at ages 2, 3, 4

Two experiments are reported examining the contents and accessibility of a subset of the knowledge represented in long-term memory by very young children. In Experiment 1, children aged 2 to 4 were asked in a production task to name items commonly found in particular rooms in a house, and then to verify the appropriate locations of a set of miniature replicas of household items in a dollhouse. In Experiment 2, object context was manipulated to observe if further external context improves or changes production. Children 3 and 4 years old were asked to produce appropriate room items under one of three conditons: either presented no room objects as in the first experiment, or given room objects highly- or less-frequently associated in the first study.Very young children revealed considerable knowledge in this domain, and even at the youngest ages, core defining information was retrieved. It was equally clear, however, that young children know much more than they can produce, that there is noticeable improvement in ability to retrieve information over this age range, and that additional external object context does not necessarily facilitate retrieval from long-term memory.