Acceso usuarios
Patricia J. Bauer, Lisa L. Travis
A robust finding in the literature on event representation and recall is that enabling relations in events facilitate memory for temporal order. In the study presented here we tested whether, with increased experience, enabling relations continue to provide a relative organizational advantage, or whether arbitrarily ordered events become as well organized. Using elicited imitation, we compared 24-month-olds' ordered recall of events constrained by enabling relations with that of arbitrarily ordered events equated for familiarity and temporal invariance. In Experiment 1 we examined recall of novel laboratory events having high numbers of enabling connections or low numbers of enabling connections; the temporal invariance of the events was established through repeated presentation. In Experiment 2 we tested recall of highly familiar, temporally invariant routines having high numbers of enabling connections or low numbers of enabling connections. In both experiments, children's ordered recall of events constrained by enabling relations was superior to that of arbitrarily ordered ones. The results indicate that even after considerable experience with an event in invariant temporal order, enabling relations provide a relative organizational advantage. Implications of this finding for the source of facilitation afforded by enabling relations are discussed.
