Effectiveness of Acoustic and Conceptual Retrieval Cues in Memory for Words at Two Grade Levels. Technical Report No. 220.

The effectiveness of two types of retrieval cues was assessed with second- and sixth-grade children. After a single presentation of a list of words, the children first recalled as many of the words as they could. Following free recall, children in each grade were given either conceptual (category names for words on the input lists) or acoustic (words which rhymed with words on the list) retrieval cues for the words missed in free recall. For all students conceptual cues were more effective than acoustic cues. For sixth-grade students both types of cues were more effective than could be expected on the basis of guessing. Second graders performed less well than sixth graders with both types of cues. While conceptual cues produced above-chance performance at the second-grade level, acoustic cues did not. Results are discussed in terms of developmental changes in memory attributes. (Author)