UNDERSTANDING THE COMBINATION OF MEMORY VARIABLES - A REEXAMINATION

This study was a direct prolongation of a study by Wellman, Collins, a nd Glieberman (1981), which showed that, provided a sufficiently sensi tive methodology is used, it is possible to demonstrate experimentally that even 5-year-old children are capable of integrating two types of information-effort and difficulty of task-in their judgment of perfor mance (number of items recalled). We prolonged this study by adopting Anderson's information integration methodology in order to provide evi dence concerning the type of combinatorial rule describing subjects' u se of both pieces of information and to refine analysis to the individ ual level. In terms of group results, it was possible to describe the algebraic aspects of the information integration process by an additiv e model in children and adolescents, and by a multiplicative model in adults. Conclusions changed considerably, however, when individual res ults were studied. In the 5- and 8-year-old children, the dominant rul e was clearly unifactorial, involving effort. Only in the adult group was true integration seen in all subjects.