Developmental differences in the impact of contextual factors on susceptibility to retroactive interference

The influence of contextual similarity on children’s recognition memory performance was examined using a retroactive interference paradigm. In the study, 9- and 12-year-olds were randomly assigned to one of two contextual conditions. In both conditions, target and interfering information were presented in distinctive contexts by using different modalities (pictures and words, respectively). However, in one condition the test was presented in the same context as the target information (picture–word–picture PWP] condition), whereas in the other condition the test was presented in the same context as the interfering information (picture–word–word PWW] condition). Performance in these conditions was compared with performance in a noninterference control condition (picture–word P-W]). As predicted, overall recognition performance in the PWP condition was significantly better than in the PWW condition. However, whereas in the PWP condition there was no age difference in performance, in the PWW condition the 12-year-old group produced significantly more hits and fewer false alarms than the 9-year-old group. The theoretical implications of the results are discussed in reference to the effortful engagement of developmentally dependent executive control processes.