Children's serial recall errors: Implications for theories of short-term memory development

Three experiments examined developmental changes in serial recall of lists of 6 letters, with errors classified as movements, omissions, intrusions, o r repetitions. In Experiments 1 and 2, developmental differences between gr oups of children aged from 7 to 11 years and adults were found in the patte rn of serial recall errors. The errors of older participants were more like ly to be movements than were those of younger participants, who made more i ntrusions and omissions. The number of repetition errors did not change wit h age, and this finding is interpreted in terms of a developmentally invari ant postoutput response inhibition process. This interpretation was support ed by the findings of Experiment 3, which measured levels of response inhib ition in 7-, 9-, and 11-year-olds by comparing recall of lists with and wit hout repeated items. Response inhibition remained developmentally invariant , although older children showed greater response facilitation (improved co rrect recall of adjacent repeated items). Group differences in the patterns of other errors are accounted for in terms of developmental changes in lev els of output forgetting and changes in the efficiency of temporal encoding processes, (C) 2000 Academic Press.