Form characteristics of category-retrieval relationships in children and adults

Subjects from Grades 2, 4, 6, and college performed a sort-recall task with 24 noncategorized items, using two 12-item sorts, four 6-item sorts, or six 4-item sorts. Among the children, the effects of increasing unitization at study were uneven across the category size conditions used and did not resemble the linear patterns shown by adults. Second graders showed retrieval advantages only for the smallest categories used, whereas fourth and sixth graders benefited from the use of moderately sized sorting categories but failed to show additional improvements for smaller sorting categories. An examination of subjects' sorting explanations suggested that different category-retrieval patterns may reflect better and poorer item relations established in smaller and larger categories, respectively. Sort conditions affording the best recall at the different grade levels were those in which subjects established the greatest number of contextual and categorical (taxonomic) relations among sorted items.