DEVELOPMENTAL-TRENDS IN IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT MEMORY - A PICTURE COMPLETION STUDY

The presence of a developmental trend in the magnitude of perceptual r epetition priming was assessed in two experiments using picture comple tion. preschool children, 6-year-old children, and young adults showed the same amount of repetition priming when both a proportional measur e of priming (Snodgrass, 1989) was used and spurious explicit memory i nfluences were partialled out from the implicit task. This finding was contrasted with the age-associated improvement in explicit memory as measured by cued and free recall. These results highlight the relevanc e of controlling explicit memory influence on implicit memory tasks in determining the effect of a variable on implicit processes, moreover they provide further support for the distinction between implicit and explicit memory. (C) 1995 Academic Press. Inc.