THE DEVELOPMENT OF MEMORY FOR IGNORED SPEECH

Previous studies of the development of children's memory have focused on attended stimuli. Here we examine short-term memory for spoken word s that were ignored at the time of their presentation. In Experiment 1 , a visual matching task was interrupted occasionally by a set of pict ure alternatives. The participant was to select the picture matching t he most recently heard word, which had been presented 1, 5, or 10 s ag o. An age difference in memory was found, but performance levels were quite high. Experiment 2 employed an alternative visual task to tie up phonological processing, bringing performance levels down to a more s ensitive range. An age difference in the persistence of memory was obt ained under these circumstances. We conclude that relatively attention -free properties of short-term memory may change with development in c hildhood. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.