Ready-Made and Self-Made Facilitation Effects of Arrays : Priming and Conceptualization in Children's Visual Memory

Abstract

The study investigates the relationship between array priming and the self-generated conceptualization of arrays in spatial memory. Nursery and primary school age children and adults (N = 70) were tested with an object and place memory reaction-time/accuracy task, once first using a frame (containment and figurative thought) and (in another session) using a grid (explicit boundaries around places). They were also given the Common Region Test (CRT) with which drawing of object-place vs. object-region binding was tested. Object memory was better than place memory in 5-year-olds, but place memory had caught up in older children. Ten-year-olds showed already an accuracy comparable to young adults, and they also remembered places somewhat better and faster than object shapes. Experiencing the explicitly denoted places in the grid in the first session improved place memory in the second session with the frame, but not vice versa. Object-place binding in the CRT predicted better object than place memory, while object-region binding predicted place memory equal to or better than object memory. These binding strategies statistically eliminated the array priming effects of the grid, showing a trade-off between “self-made” spatial encoding strategy and priming with a “ready-made” spatial array structure.