Children's
Instrumental Inferences Using an Implicit Memory Test.
H. Tajika, S.F. Collins & A. Taniguchi |
To
investigate whether elementary school children infer instruments
implied by actions in single sentence contexts, 14 sentences were
presented to 3rd graders and 6th graders with the instruments explicitly
not stated. Children were instructed to read and memorize each of
the fourteen sentences (the control group) or to generate an instrument
for each sentence during reading and memorizing (the generation group).
They were given two types of tests, first a word-stem completion
test and second a cued recall test or a free recall test. Each group
of children showed priming effects. Children in the generation group
recalled more sentences than those in the control group. The results
suggest that even 3rd graders infer instruments during reading.
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