CHILDRENS INSTRUMENTAL INFERENCES USING AN IMPLICIT MEMORY TEST

To investigate whether elementary school children infer instruments im plied by actions in single sentence contexts, 14 sentences were presen ted to 3rd graders and 6th graders with the instruments explicitly not stated. Children were instructed to read and memorize each of the fou rteen sentences (the control group) or to generate an instrument for e ach sentence during reading and memorizing (the generation group). The y were given two types of tests, first a word-stem completion test and second a cued recall lest or a free recall test. Each group of childr en showed priming effects. Children in the generation group recalled m ore sentences than those in the control group. The results suggest tha t even 3rd graders infer instruments during reading.