The roles of imagery,language, and metamemory in cross-modal transfer in children

Summary The relative strengths of association of imagery, language, and metamemory to cross-modal transfer were evaluated in 5-year-olds and 7-year-olds. Children were administered either tactual-visual or visual-tactual cross-modal transfer tasks, as well as two visual imagery tasks (spatial recall and mental rotation), two language competence tasks (vocabulary and word usage), metamemory questions, and a general intelligence task. With intelligence and handedness controlled, only visual imagery related significantly to cross-modal transfer. These findings suggest that mental imagery, as opposed to language competence or metamemory, is a principal component of cross-modal transfer, and they are consistent with the observation that preverbal human infants and infrahuman primates exhibit cross-modal transfer.