A FUZZY TRACE ANALYSIS OF CATEGORICAL INFERENCES AND INSTANTIAL ASSOCIATIONS AS A FUNCTION OF RETENTION INTERVAL

Two experiments on children's inferences and associative memory provid ed a test of predictions from fuzzy-trace theory. Specifically it was expected that gist-based false recognitions would increase with age an d that false recognitions would be uncorrelated with verbatim memory. In Experiment 1, children in Grades 1 through 5 heard lists of categor y labels, clustered instances from categories, and individual instance s. On an immediate test, children indicated whether or not they had pr eviously heard a series of individually presented test words. This lis t consisted of old words, new words, or words that were categorically or semantically related to the studied word clusters. Children made mo re false recognition errors for instances than for categories. Verbati m memory and inferences were unrelated. In Experiment 2, the effect of a test delay on categorical inferences and associated instances was e xamined with children in Grades 1 to 6. With delay, false recognition of associated instances declined for children at all grade levels. In contrast, categorical inferences increased with delay for older childr en. Verbatim memory and inferences were uncorrelated under immediate a nd 1-day delay conditions, but there were some low but significant cor relations across grades under the 7-day delay. The results of the two experiments are interpreted as supporting fuzzy-trace theory.