Developmental changes in clustering criteria

Abstract

Two different stimulus lists were presented to both first graders and college students for free recall. One list was composed of pairs of words which share complementary relationships (e.g., pipe and tobacco), and the other list was composed of pairs which share similarity relationships (e.g., king and ruler). An analysis of variance performed on the clustering scores indicated that age and the interaction between age and list were significant sources of variance. Children clustered more than adults when given the complementary list, and adults clustered more than children when given the similarity list. Thus, the finding of earlier studies that clustering generally increases with age appears to be limited. The present study suggests that, rather than being less able to organize information, young children simply organize according to different criteria than adults.