J. Experimental Child Psychology 91 (2005) 342–366

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Pre-event discussion and recall of a novel event: How are children best prepared?

Fiona McGuigan, Karen Salmon ¤

School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia

Received 26 August 2004; revised 13 February 2005Available online 4 May 2005

Abstract

We investigated the conditions under which information 1 day before a novel event inXuenced6-year-olds’ recall 2 weeks later. In Experiment 1A, four preparation conditions included either theevent goals, goals with narration of the event actions and objects, photographs of the objects withgoals and narration, or photographs with narration and child verbalization of the actions andobjects. Compared with an irrelevant preparation control condition, goals with narration reducederrors, but correct recall was increased only when photographs were included. Child verbalizationtogether with goals, narration, and photographs increased correct recall relative to goals with nar-ration. In Experiment 1B, neither photographs nor preparation alone improved recall relative tothe control condition. Experiment 2 found no further advantage of increasing children’s participa-tion in the preparation via questions. Overall, the impact of preevent information on memory isinXuenced by the nature of the information and the child’s participation in the preparation. 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Event memory; Adult–child discussion; Preparation

Introduction

Under what circumstances does information about a novel future event increaseyoung children’s knowledge of that event? That is, how do we ensure that the

* Corresponding author. Fax: +64 2 9385 3641.E-mail address: k.salmon@unsw.edu.au (K. Salmon).

0022-0965/$ - see front matter 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2005.03.006

F. McGuigan, K. Salmon / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 91 (2005) 342–366 343

information discussed in advance is integrated with the child’s representation ofthe event in memory? The response to these questions has important implications.A signiWcant proportion of discussion between parents and their young children isdirected toward future events, presumably to increase the children’s knowledgeand understanding of these experiences (Hudson, 2002; Lucariello & Nelson,1987). Although a strong body of research shows that adult–child talk during orafter an event inXuences young children’s recall of the experience (e.g., Leichtman,Pillemer, Wang, Koreishi, & Han, 2000; Tessler & Nelson, 1994), very littleresearch has investigated the impact of discussion before an event. In pediatric set-tings as well, parents or staV often tell children about the details of an upcomingmedical procedure and may supplement the information with toys and models, sto-rybooks, or Wlms (e.g., Goodman, Quas, Batterman-Faunce, Riddlesberger, &Kuhn, 1997; Phillips, Watson, & MacKinlay, 1998; Powers, 1999; SpaVord, vonBaeyer, & Hicks, 2002; Steward, 1993; Suls & Wan, 1989; Zelikovsky, Rodrigue,Gidycz, & Davis, 2000). Research has shown that discussion during or after a med-ical procedure can enhance young children’s recall (Chen, Zeltzer, Craske, & Katz,1999; Salmon, McGuigan, & Pereira, 2004), but no research has investigated theimpact on memory of discussion before an event, whether alone or supplementedwith visual information.

We aimed to address this research gap by investigating the conditions under whichpre-event information enhances 6-year-olds’ recall of a novel staged event, a “visit tothe pretend zoo.” We asked whether, relative to a control condition, pre-event discus-sion with and without visually presented information boosts the children’s memoryof the event. In addition, we examined whether increasing the children’s participationin the preparation further beneWts recall.

Although limited work directly addresses the inXuence of pre-event discussion,much research shows that prior knowledge inXuences how information isencoded, stored, and retrieved. Children who have greater knowledge in aparticular domain perform better on memory tasks relevant to that domain(Bjorklund, 1987; Chi, 1978; Greenhoot, 2000). Moreover, from the preschoolyears, children’s recall is inXuenced by their generalized knowledge about events(scripts) derived from repeated personal experiences (Hudson, Fivush, & Kuebli,1992; Myles-Worsley, Cromer, & Dodd, 1986; Nelson, 1986). General eventknowledge might not, however, be the optimal form of preparation for a novelevent. Sutherland, Pipe, Schick, Murray, and Gobbo (2003) investigated theimpact of general or speciWc preparation on 5- to 7-year-olds’ recall of a stagedevent, “visiting the pirate.” The day before the event, some children receivedevent-speciWc preparation; they were read and discussed an illustrated story thatdescribed what would happen during the pirate event. Other children receivedevent-general preparation; they were engaged in discussion of general knowledgeof pirates unrelated to what would happen during the event. A control groupdiscussed a nonpirate topic. Relative to general preparation, event-speciWc prepa-ration elicited more detailed accounts of the event when children were intervieweda few days later. In contrast, talking about “what pirates do” did not improverecall.

344 F. McGuigan, K. Salmon / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 91 (2005) 342–366

Prior discussion alone, without visual support (which was available in Sutherlandet al., 2003), may nonetheless have a weak impact on young children’s recall even ifthe discussion is speciWc to the event. McGuigan and Salmon (2004) compared theinXuence of the timing of adult–child talk (2 to 3 days before, during, or 2 to 3 daysafter) about a staged event (visiting the pretend zoo) on 3- and 5-year-olds’ recall ofthat event 2 weeks later. Whereas post-event adult–child talk had the strongest inXu-ence on recall, pre-event discussion did not increase the correct information reportedfor children of either age group. Its inXuence was limited to the reduction of errorsrelative to a control condition in which the children experienced empty talk (e.g.,“Now we are going to do this”).

The limited eVect of pre-event talk might be due to its being too poorly encoded tobe integrated with the information from the event (Murachver, Pipe, Gordon, &Owens, 1996; Sutherland et al., 2003). Talk after the event, in contrast, occurs in thecontext of a representation established previously through direct experience andencoded in multiple modalities, rendering it more likely that the post-event talk willbe integrated with the existing event memory (e.g., Bellezza, Winkler, & Andrasik,1975; Young & Bellezza, 1982). The encoding of pre-event talk is likely to be furthercompromised by young children’s limited ability to reason about future relative topast experiences (Friedman, 2003; Hudson, 2002). For example, in sequencing pic-tures of daily activities, 4- and 5-year-olds were more accurate when the activitieswere referenced to “the known past” than when they were referenced to “theunknown future” (Benson, 1997, p. 68).

These considerations suggest that improving the encoding of pre-event informa-tion may increase its impact on memory and that one way in which to do this may beto supplement discussion with visual information. Indeed, children’s recall of aurallypresented prose passages is enhanced by the simultaneous presentation of pictures,which are most eVective when they overlap with the story content but are nonredun-dant (Holmes, 1987; Lesgold, Levin, Shimron, & Guttman, 1975; Small, Lovett, &Sher, 1993). Moreover, the boost to recall is over and above the impact of simplypresenting the verbal material twice (Levin, Bender, & Lesgold, 1976). In the currentresearch, therefore, we investigated the relative impact on children’s recall of prepa-ration conveyed verbally and also when supplemented with photographs. Weselected photographs because they provide maximal feature overlap with aspects ofthe event while also conveying spatial and descriptive information that is not avail-able in even a detailed narration (e.g., Deocampo & Hudson, 2003; Salmon, 2001).Given the research outlined here, these factors may maximize the likelihood thatencoding of the preparation will be strengthened and the information will be inte-grated with the event (Small et al., 1993; Sutherland et al., 2003).

A second factor that may account for the relative lack of impact of preparatorytalk on children’s memory is that when the event is novel, children have limited par-ticipation in the conversation. Yet children’s contribution potentially has signiWcantbeneWts. For example, children demonstrate superior recall of the activities discussedby both their mothers and themselves as an event unfolds compared with thosetalked about only by their mothers or not discussed (Haden, Ornstein, Eckerman, &Didow, 2001; see also Farrant & Reese, 2000). Furthermore, children who engage in

F. McGuigan, K. Salmon / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 91 (2005) 342–366 345

during- or post-event talk recall a greater proportion of the items that they generatedduring the talk than were narrated by their adult conversational partner (McGuigan& Salmon, 2004). The memorial beneWt of children’s participation in adult–child dis-cussion is consistent with Wndings that self-generated material is better rememberedby adults and children than is material that is read or heard (the “generation eVect”).Proposed explanations include that generation promotes deeper and more completeencoding and retrieval practice for the memory test (e.g., Brown & Craik, 2000;McNamara & Healy, 1995; Schmidt & Bjork, 1992). In McGuigan and Salmon’s(2004) experiment, however, the impact of generating information prior to the eventwas not investigated. In the current experiments, we examined whether recall wasfacilitated by asking children to verbalize the preparatory narration following its pre-sentation by the experimenter (Experiment 1A) or to respond to questions about theactions and objects in the upcoming event and make associations with their own pastexperiences (Experiment 2).

Experiment 1A

In Experiment 1A, we compared the eVectiveness of four types of preparation asmeans of facilitating 6-year-olds’ recall of the event, a visit to the pretend zoo. Weselected 6-year-olds because we have previously found that they do not show signiW-cant memorial beneWt from verbal preparation and we wished to compare those ear-lier Wndings with our current results for children of the same age (McGuigan &Salmon, 2004).

In one condition, the children were provided with the goals of the event, whichwere stated verbally and accompanied by a generic computer-generated drawing tofocus the children’s attention (e.g., a prototypal picture of a giraVe as children weretold the goal of “tidying up giraVe”). Providing the event goals may boost encodingand increase children’s understanding by highlighting the event structure and theassociations between the actions and objects (Ratner & Foley, 1994; Trabasso &Stein, 1997; Wenner, 2004). In the second condition, the children were provided withthe goals and complete narration in which all components of the event were labeledand described by the adult; this condition was identical to the pre-event and duringevent discussion in McGuigan and Salmon (2004). In the third condition, in additionto the goals and narration, the children were presented with photographs of objectsfrom the event. As we noted earlier, visual information is likely to enhance encoding,and photographs may be particularly eVective given their high degree of feature over-lap with the objects in the event itself. In the fourth condition, in addition to beingpresented with goals, narrative, and photographs, the children were encouraged toverbalize aspects of the event to capitalize on the beneWts to encoding of generatinginformation (the generation eVect). Child verbalization entailed the children’s restat-ing the objects and actions from each activity in the event following the experi-menter’s narration. An attention control condition consisted of adult–childdiscussion unrelated to the upcoming event. Therefore, the children were allocated toeither the control condition or one of the four preparation conditions: (a) goals, (b)

346 F. McGuigan, K. Salmon / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 91 (2005) 342–366

goals + narration, (c) goals + narration + photographs, or (d) goals + narration +photographs + verbalization. All preparation sessions took place 1 day before partic-ipating in a staged event, a visit to the pretend zoo, and children were interviewed 2weeks later.

In light of the Wndings of McGuigan and Salmon (2004), we predicted that, rela-tive to the control condition, pre-event talk without either photographs or childverbalization (goals + narration condition) would decrease the number of errorsmade but would not increase the correct information reported; the same patternmight be found for goals only. Furthermore, we expected that children preparedwith photographs (goals + narration + photographs and goals + narration +photographs + verbalization conditions) would report more correct informationthan would children prepared with pre-event talk only (goals and goals + narrationconditions). Finally, we anticipated that children who were engaged in verbaliza-tion during the preparation (goals + narration + photographs + verbalizationcondition) would report more correct information than would children in all otherconditions.

Method

Participants

The participants were 81 6-year-olds (37 girls and 44 boys, M D 70.14 months,SD D 3.95, range D 63–78). The children were recruited with parental consent fromWve schools in Sydney, Australia, and varied in their ethnic background and socio-economic status.

Materials

PreparationSeven laminated boards, each measuring 65 £ 75 cm, were used. On six of these

photo boards, four to six photographs were presented depicting the props associatedwith each activity of the event (one board per activity). One board (the “goalsboard”) presented a summary of the six activities of the event. In a vertical list, thewords zoo-keeper, giraVe, lion, koala, monkey, and baby elephant were presented incolor, and under each word was a computer-generated picture of the relevant animalor, in the case of the zoo-keeper, a hat and shirt. The pictures were included to maxi-mize children’s attention as they were guided through the goals board and to elimi-nate any advantage to those children who could read. The generic pictures did notcontain speciWc features of the props in the event.

EventThe event, a visit to the pretend zoo, was structured according to six core activities,

each associated with an overarching goal. A set of props created the event context andconsisted of four movable animals; a giraVe, a lion, a koala, and a monkey. Each ani-mal measured approximately 1.5 £0.75 m; was made with felt, fur, and stuYng; and

F. McGuigan, K. Salmon / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 91 (2005) 342–366 347

was backed onto a wooden board. In addition, 26 smaller props (e.g., shirt, thermome-ter) were used. Table 1 shows the structure of the event and its associated props.

Memory interviewTo assess nonverbal sequencing memory, 31 colored laminated photographs mea-

suring 15 £ 10 cm were used. Of these photographs, 6 were of props representing thesix activities of the event (becoming the zoo-keeper; visiting the giraVe, the lion, thekoala, and the monkey; and Wnding the baby elephant), and 25 were of the propsassociated with these Wrst Wve activities.

Expressive languageThe Expressive Vocabulary Test (EVT) (Williams, 1997) measures expressive

vocabulary and word retrieval ability. Of 190 test items, 38 require a label for part of

Table 1The event structure

Activity Activity goal Actions and objects

1 Becoming the zoo-keeper Putting on the zoo-keeper hat and shirtWriting the zoo-keeper name tagPutting on the zoo-keeper bagGetting the photograph clue about the lost baby elephant and putting it in the bag

2 Tidying up the giraVe Blowing bubblesUsing the brush on her furPolishing her feet with the clothPutting the beads on her neckPutting the ribbon on her tail

3 Feeding the lion Putting the vitamin in the water bottle and shakingPutting the meat chops in the bowlCounting the carrots and beansTying the napkin around his neckPlaying the dinner song on the tambourine

4 Looking after the sick koala Taking his temperature with the thermometerWiping his nose with the tissuePouring the medicine into the cupReading him the storyTucking him in with the blanket

5 Making birthday presents for the monkey

Painting the picture of the sunMaking the playdough birthday cake and putting the candle inThreading the macaroni necklacePutting glitter stamps on the cardPutting the presents in the box

6 Finding the baby elephant Looking for the baby elephantSigning the zoo-keeper’s bookTaking oV the hat and shirtGetting a sticker

348 F. McGuigan, K. Salmon / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 91 (2005) 342–366

a picture and 152 require a synonym for a stimulus word/words presented in a pic-ture. The EVT yields a standard score (M D 100, SD D 15).

Procedure

Balanced across gender and school, children were assigned randomly to either thecontrol condition or one of the four preparation conditions.

PreparationChildren participated individually in a preparation session 1 day prior to the

event. All children were prepared by the same female experimenter. The preparationsessions were of approximately 4 min duration for children in the control and goalscondition and of 8 to 10 min duration when children were also provided with a narra-tive (goals + narration, goals + narration+ photographs, and goals + narration +photographs + verbalization conditions). Children in the control condition were reada brief story (unrelated to zoos) and participated in an informal discussion about thestory.

Children in the experimental conditions were asked to listen carefully to someinformation about the pretend zoo so that they knew what to do when it was theirturn to visit the pretend zoo the next day. Children in the goals condition were pre-sented with the goals board, and the goal associated with each of the activities of theevent was stated in its correct temporal sequence; for example, as the experimenterpointed to the computer-generated picture of the giraVe, the children were told thatthey would “make the giraVe clean and tidy.”

Children in the goals + narration condition were also presented with the goals ofthe event as in the goals condition. Before this, however, they were told the “story ofthe pretend zoo,” a narrative of the event in which each of the six activities and thegoals, actions, and objects of each activity were verbally labeled; for example, “Youwill make the giraVe clean and tidy [goal]. To do this, you can Wrst take the bubbles[object] and blow [action] them on the giraVe.”

The preparation for children in the goals + narration + photographs condition wasthe same as that in the goals + narration condition except that as the children weretold the story of the pretend zoo, they were shown the six photo boards (one activityat a time) and guided through the photographs; for example, “You will make thegiraVe clean and tidy [goal]. To do this, you can Wrst take the bubbles [object] andblow [action] them on the giraVe” as the experimenter pointed to the photograph ofthe bubbles.

Children in the goals + narration + photographs + verbalization condition wereprovided with the same preparation as in the goals + narration + photographs con-dition, but following the presentation of each photo board, the children were askedto label the goals, actions, and objects of each activity of the event. SpeciWcally,after each photo board had been presented and the experimenter had verballylabeled the goals, actions, and objects of the activity, the experimenter asked thechildren to “Tell me again what will happen with each of these” and guided thechildren by pointing to each of the photographs in the correct sequence. The exper-

F. McGuigan, K. Salmon / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 91 (2005) 342–366 349

imenter repeated the correct verbal label for an action, object, or goal if the chil-dren did not do so.

EventOne day after the preparation, the children participated in the event, which

lasted approximately 12 min. Each child was escorted to a classroom by a guide,who explained that he or she was going to visit a pretend zoo. The child wasintroduced to a second female experimenter, who was not informed of the child’sexperimental condition and who guided the child through the event. The sixactivities in the event were not obviously related to children’s general knowledgeof a zoo (Table 1). Each activity consisted of four or Wve actions associated withthe overall goal of that activity. The props corresponding to each activity werearranged at six discrete stations. Children were not permitted to play with theprops or to perform actions on them other than those in the script. FollowingPipe (1996), the experimenter used “empty language” such that the goals, objects,and actions of the event were not labeled (e.g., “Now I would like you to put thison here”).

Memory interviewThe children were interviewed individually by a third female experimenter 14 to

16 days (M D 14.42, SD D 0.52) after the event. The interviewer, who was notinformed of the children’s experimental condition, followed a structured interviewprotocol consisting of a verbal phase (free recall, prompted recall, and questions)and a nonverbal phase (photograph sequencing). During the verbal phase, theinterviewer began with a general open-ended prompt (free recall): “I’d like you totell me everything that happened when you visited the zoo. I would also like you totell me everything in the right order so that you start with the things that happenedWrst and Wnish with the things that happened last.” The interviewer gave Wve gen-eral prompts only (e.g., “What else happened?,” “Tell me more about that”).Prompted recall began when the children appeared to be unable to provide moreinformation. Children were provided with six verbal prompts corresponding to thesix activities in the event; for example, “I heard that when children visit the pre-tend zoo, they visit the giraVe. Tell me what happened when you visited the giraVeat the pretend zoo.” If the children were unable to recall any information, theywere prompted with the Wrst object in each scene; for example, “I heard that whenyou visited the giraVe, there were some bubbles. Tell me about that.” Childrenwere then asked six questions, each relating to an object in the six activities; forexample, “I heard that something happened with a red ribbon. Tell me aboutthat.” Prompts and questions were given in one of two predetermined randomorders counterbalanced across conditions, neither of which corresponded to theorder of the event.

When a child appeared to be unable to provide more information, the nonver-bal (photograph sequencing) phase commenced. The child was presented with sixsets of photographs, one set at a time. These were the same photographs as hadbeen used in the preparation sessions. The Wrst set depicted the six core activities

350 F. McGuigan, K. Salmon / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 91 (2005) 342–366

of the event (becoming the zoo-keeper; visiting the giraVe, the lion, the koala, andthe monkey; and Wnding the baby elephant). The child was asked to show theexperimenter “Which one of these things did you do Wrst?, Which one did you donext?,” until the child had indicated the order in which all of the activities/propsoccurred. The remaining Wve sets depicted the props associated with the Wrst Wveactivities. The child was shown one set (Wve pictures) and asked to order these asthey had occurred for that activity. Interviews were audiotaped and lasted 10 to15 min.

Language assessmentAfter the memory interview, the EVT was administered.

Coding

Memory interviewsAll information reported verbally was coded as it was recalled during free recall,

prompted recall, or questions; for prompted recall and questions, only informationthat had not been reported previously was coded. Verbal information was coded ascorrect items, errors, or event goals. Children were credited with one correct itemfor reporting actions, objects, and descriptors that were part of the event; for exam-ple, stick (action), ribbon (object), and red (descriptor) each would receive one cor-rect item. Children were given an error for each distortion or intrusion. Distortionswere actions or objects that had been part of the event but were incorrectlydescribed or placed in the incorrect activity; for example, “sticking the ribbon onthe monkey ” was one error because the ribbon was stuck on the giraVe. Intrusionsconstituted actions or objects that had not been part of the event; for example,“buying a ticket ” was coded as two errors because neither the action nor the objectwas part of the event. Children were credited with one of six possible event goalswhen they reported an overarching goal of one of the scenes (e.g., “I found thebaby elephant”).

In addition, we coded the sequencing of free recall. Following Wegner, Quillian,and Houston (1996), one correct score was given if the object or action reported hadoccurred in the event after the object or action recalled just previously (e.g., the childreported that he or she had visited the lion and then the monkey). One error wasgiven if the object or action occurred in the event before the object of action recalledpreviously (e.g., the child reported that he or she visited the monkey and then thelion). The accuracy of sequencing was calculated as (Correct Scores)/(CorrectScores + Errors).

Nonverbal memoryFor the sequencing of photographed props, one correct sequencing score was

awarded when a photographed prop was placed after a photographed prop that hadbeen presented earlier in the event. The accuracy (proportion correct) of photographsequencing was calculated as Number of Correctly Sequenced Photographs/25(range D 0–25).

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ReliabilityApproximately one quarter (30 of 105) of the memory transcripts were coded

independently by an experimenter who was not informed of the children’s prepara-tion condition. An equal number of transcripts were selected at random from eachcondition. Reliability, calculated as (Agreements)/(Agreements + Disagreements),was 90% (range D 80–95). Data analysis was based on the codes assigned by the pri-mary coder.

Results

Preliminary analyses

There were no signiWcant diVerences between conditions in age (months),F (4, 76) D 1.96, p > .05, or EVT score, F (4, 76) D 0.73, p > .05. The standardizedscores for the EVT were within the average range (M D 103.42, SD D 8.77). We alsoestablished that there were no Xoor or ceiling eVects for the memory tests. Of a pos-sible 31 actions and 32 objects, children recalled a mean of 10 actions and 15objects.

Statistical strategy

Unless speciWed otherwise, data were analyzed using a one-way analysis of vari-ance (ANOVA) with condition, (5: control, goals, goals + narration, goals +narration + photographs, goals + narration + photographs + verbalization) as thebetween-participants factor. Planned comparisons investigated a priori hypotheses,and Tukey’s post hoc tests investigated other signiWcant main eVects. Table 2 showsthe total correct items, total goals, total errors, free recall sequencing accuracy, andnonverbal sequencing accuracy by condition.

Table 2Experiment 1A: Mean total correct items, total errors, free recall sequencing accuracy, and nonverbalsequencing accuracy by condition

Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses.

Condition

Control(n D 17)

Goals (n D 15)

Goals +narration(n D 16)

Goals + narration+photographs (n D 16)

Goals + narration+ photographs+verbalization (n D 17)

Total correct 23.00 (11.28) 24.47 (9.00) 27.69 (7.88) 36.69 (9.93) 41.71 (9.12)Total goals 1.18 (0.53) 2.93 (1.28) 3.50 (1.10) 3.13 (1.26) 2.88 (1.31)Total errors 3.53 (2.55) 2.07 (1.44) 1.56 (1.55) 1.94 (1.65) 1.65 (1.32)Free sequencing 0.63 (0.36) 0.79 (0.29) 0.92 (0.13) 0.97 (0.09) 0.81 (0.23)Nonverbal

sequencing0.65 (0.09) 0.65 (0.07) 0.69 (0.08) 0.73 (0.06) 0.73 (0.07)

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Verbal recall

Correct items in total recall was calculated as the total number of actions, objects, anddescriptors (summed) verbally reported across free recall, prompted recall, and questions(summed). The main eVect was signiWcant, F(4,76)D11.98, p<.001 (Table 2). Children inthe control, goals, and goals+narration conditions (averaged) reported a similar numberof correct items, t(76)D¡1.17, p>.10; goals with and without narration did not increasethe number of correct items reported relative to the control condition. Moreover, childrenin the goals+narration+photographs condition reported more items than did those inthe goals+narration condition, t(76)D¡2.67, p<.01; photographs with narrationincreased the correct items reported relative to narration only. Finally, there was nosigniWcant diVerence in the correct items reported by children in the goals +narration+photographs condition and those reported by children in thegoals+narration+photographs+ verbalization condition, t(76)D¡1.51, p>.10, but thediVerence between the correct items reported by children in the goals+narration andgoals+narration+photographs+ verbalization conditions was signiWcant, t(76)D¡4.22,p<.00; adding verbalization to the preparation increased its memorial impact relative togoals and narration only, but not relative to goals with narration and photographs.

Total goalsFor the number of goals reported in total recall (possible maximum of 6), the main

eVect was signiWcant, F (4, 76) D 10.58, p < .001. Children in the goals,goals + narration, goals + narration + photographs, and goals + narration +photographs + verbalization conditions reported a similar number of goals and agreater number than did children in the control condition (Table 2). That is, relativeto the control condition, children in all conditions reported more goals.

ErrorsErrors in total recall was calculated as the number of distortions and intrusions

(summed) across free and prompted recall and questions (summed). The main eVect wassigniWcant, F(4,76)D3.43, p<.05. Children in the goals and goals+narration conditions(averaged) made fewer errors than did children in the control condition, t(76)D¡3.21,p<.01. There was no signiWcant diVerence in the number of errors made by children inthe goals and goals+narration conditions (averaged) and those made by children in thegoals+narration+photographs and goals+narration+photographs+verbalizationconditions (averaged), t(76)D .05, p>.10 (Table 2).

Sequencing of free recallFor the accuracy (proportion correct) of sequencing of free recall, the main eVect

was signiWcant, F (4,75) D 4.62, p < .01. Children in the goals + narration and goals+ narration + photographs conditions were more accurate than children in the con-trol condition. Children in the other two conditions (goals and goals + narration+ photographs + verbalization) did not diVer from children in the control condition,nor did they diVer from children in the goals + narration and goals + narration +photographs conditions.

F. McGuigan, K. Salmon / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 91 (2005) 342–366 353

Nonverbal recall

For the accuracy of photograph sequencing, the main eVect was signiWcant,F (4, 76) D 4.68, p < .01 (Table 2). Children who were prepared for the event with pho-tographs (goals + narration + photographs and goals + narration + photographs +verbalization conditions) sequenced the photographs more accurately than did chil-dren in the control and goals conditions, who did not diVer. The accuracy of childrenin the goals + narration condition did not diVer from that of children in the otherconditions.

Discussion

Consistent with our hypotheses and our previous Wndings, pre-event discussion(narration) did not increase correct recall; indeed, photographs were critical in deter-mining whether the amount of correct information reported diVered from thatreported by children in the control condition. SpeciWcally, children whose prepara-tion consisted of photographs with narration (goals + narration + photographs andgoals + narration + photographs + verbalization) reported more correct informationthan did children in both the control and goals conditions. A body of research high-lights the beneWts of pictures for children’s comprehension and memory of stories(Lesgold et al., 1975; Small et al., 1993); for example, Ricci and Beal (2002) foundpoor recall and comprehension by 6-year-olds when a story was presented verballyrelative to when it was presented in both auditory and visual modalities. The currentWndings extend this research in demonstrating that, to enhance 6-year-olds’ eventrecall, both modalities are necessary during preparation.

Nonetheless, goals and narration reduced the number of errors made relative tothe control condition. Also consistent with our previous Wndings, therefore, narrationreduced the likelihood that the children distorted aspects of the event or intrudedinformation from other events (McGuigan & Salmon, 2004). Interestingly, addingphotographs and child verbalization did not further reduce errors.

The opportunity for the children to verbalize the objects, actions, and goals was ofsome memorial beneWt relative to narration only. We cannot rule out the possibilitythat this boost to recall related to additional exposure to information about the event(narration and verbalization) rather than to generation per se. Nonetheless, our pre-diction that generation would be beneWcial is supported by the large body of researchshowing that generating, as opposed to reading or hearing material, enhances recall(e.g., Brown & Craik, 2000; McNamara & Healy, 1995; Schmidt & Bjork, 1992).

Providing the goals of the event without either narration or photographs had min-imal impact on correct recall, ensuring only that more goals were reported relative tothe control condition. We had considered that goals might reduce errors by provid-ing an organizational structure that could contribute to stronger encoding of theevent itself. Research has shown, however, that 4-year-olds’ recall of a story beneWtsfrom knowledge of the goals only under some circumstances, including that the storyenactment is supported by props or pictures (Wenner, 2004). Even for the 6-year-oldsin the current study, therefore, providing the goals in advance of the event without

354 F. McGuigan, K. Salmon / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 91 (2005) 342–366

visual support appeared to render them too abstract to be useful as a means of facili-tating children’s recall. As we have suggested for narration, therefore, goals alonemay have been too poorly encoded to be integrated with the event itself.

Experiment 1B

Experiment 1A showed that, during preparation, supplementing goals and narrationwith photographs of objects from the event elicited more correct information about theevent than when photographs were not included. It is possible, however, that it was sim-ply the exposure to the photographs that improved children’s event recall rather thanalso the goals and narration accompanying the photographs. This may be particularlyso for nonverbal recall given the Wndings of Experiment 1A that photographs with nar-ration produced more accurate sequencing relative to the control condition. In Experi-ment 1B, we investigated the impact on recall of a photographs condition in which thechildren were presented with photographs without narration. We compared their recallwith that of children in the control and goals+ narration+ photographs conditionsfrom Experiment 1A. We anticipated that the memory performance of children in thephotographs condition would be similar to that of children in the control condition andinferior to that of children in the goals+ narration+ photographs condition on all mea-sures of verbal and nonverbal recall.

Another question raised by Experiment 1A was whether the superior recall of chil-dren who were prepared for the event with narration, photographs, and verbalizationwas simply a reXection of their recall of the more complete preparation they hadreceived as opposed to their recall of the event (experienced with empty language)enhanced by preparation. In Experiment 1B, we included a preparation-only condi-tion in which children participated in the maximum preparation (goals +narration + photographs + verbalization) and the memory interview but not in theevent. We compared their recall with that of children in the control andgoals + narration + photographs + verbalization conditions from Experiment 1A. Weexpected that the memory performance of children in the preparation-only conditionwould be inferior to that of children in the goals + narration + photographs +verbalization condition. It was also possible that the memory performance of chil-dren in the preparation-only condition would be inferior to that of children in thecontrol condition given Wndings that information derived from direct experience (theevent) is better recalled than that derived from vicarious sources (the preparation)(e.g., Murachver et al., 1996).

Method

Participants

The participants were 28 6-year-olds (12 girls and 16 boys, M D 71.05 months,SD D 4.31, range D 62–79) recruited with parental consent from one school. Ethnicityand socioeconomic status were similar to those of children in Experiment 1A.

F. McGuigan, K. Salmon / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 91 (2005) 342–366 355

Materials

The materials were identical to those used in Experiment 1A.

Procedure

Balanced across gender, children were randomly assigned to either the photo-graphs condition or the preparation-only condition.

PreparationChildren in both conditions individually participated in a preparation session 1

day before the event. All children were prepared by the same female experimenterwho conducted the preparation in Experiment 1A. Children in the photographs con-dition were asked to “look carefully at photographs of the pretend zoo” so that theyknew what to do when it was their turn to visit the pretend zoo the next day. Theexperimenter showed the children the six photo boards (one activity at a time) andguided the children’s attention by pointing to each of the photographs in a sequentialmanner. Children were also told that this was a “looking” activity, and not a “talk-ing” activity, to prevent spontaneous verbal labeling of event components. There wasno verbal labeling of the photographs or any other aspects of the event.

Children in the preparation-only condition were asked to listen carefully to a“story about a visit to the pretend zoo” and were then prepared in the same way aswere children in the goals + narration + photographs + verbalization condition inExperiment 1A. The durations of the preparation for children in the photographsand preparation-only conditions were 5 and 8 to 10 min, respectively.

EventChildren in the photographs condition participated in the event as in Experiment

1A, with the same second female experimenter as in that experiment. Children in thepreparation-only condition were read an unrelated story instead of taking part in theevent to ensure similar contact with experimenters across conditions.

Memory interviewChildren in the photographs and preparation-only conditions were interviewed

individually by the same third female experimenter who had also interviewed chil-dren in Experiment 1A. This occurred 14 or 15 days (M D 14.04, SD D 0.19) after theevent, using the same structured memory interview as was described for Experiment1A. Similarly, at the end of the memory interview, children completed the EVT.

CodingMemory interviews were coded as in Experiment 1A.

ReliabilityInter-rater reliability coding was performed by the same experimenter as in Exper-

iment 1A. Reliability, calculated as (Agreements)/(Agreements + Disagreements) and

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based on one quarter (7 of 28) of the verbal memory transcripts randomly selectedfrom both conditions, was 91% (range D 82–95). Data analysis was based on thecodes assigned by the primary coder.

Results

Preliminary analyses were repeated to include the two additional conditions andindicated that there were no signiWcant diVerences among the seven conditions in age(months), F (6,102) D 2.13, p > .05, or EVT score, F (6, 102) D 1.31, p > .05. The totalcorrect items, errors, free recall sequencing accuracy, and photograph sequencingaccuracy were submitted to two multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs). Inone, we compared diVerences in recall among children in the photographs, control,and goals + narrative + photographs conditions; in the other, we compared diVer-ences among children in the preparation-only, control and goals + narration+ photographs + verbalization conditions. Table 3 presents means from the relevantconditions in Experiments 1A and 1B.

Photographs conditionThe signiWcant eVect of preparation condition, F (8,78)D 7.01, p < .00, was followed

by univariate analyses for each measure of memory. There were signiWcant main eVectsfor total correct recall, F (2,43)D13.15, p < .00, total errors, F (2,43)D 3.52, p < .05, accu-racy of nonverbal sequencing, F (2,43)D 6.07, p < .01, and accuracy of free recallsequencing, F (2,43)D 7.94, p < .00. Planned comparisons showed that there were nosigniWcant diVerences between the photographs and control conditions on any of thememory variables: total correct recall, t (45)D 1.29, p > .10, total errors, t (45)D 0.18,p > .10, accuracy of free recall sequencing, t (43) D¡0.12, p > .10, and accuracy of non-verbal photograph sequencing, t (45) D0.77, p > .10. In contrast, compared with chil-dren in the goals+ narrative+ photographs condition, the performance of children inthe photographs condition was inferior on all memory variables. They recalled fewer

Table 3Experiment 1B: Mean total correct items, total errors, and accuracy of free recall sequencing and accuracyof nonverbal sequencing by condition

Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses. Superscripts (1,2) indicate that comparisons were madebetween conditions.

Condition

Photographs1 (n D 15)

Goals + narration+photographs1 (n D 16)

Control1,2 (n D 17)

Preparationonly2 (n D 13)

Goals + narration+ photographs+ verbalization2 (n D 17)

Total correct 18.53 (7.67) 36.69 (9.93) 23.00 (11.28) 17.69 (9.76) 41.71 (9.12)Total errors 3.40 (1.72) 1.94 (1.65) 3.53 (2.55) 3.69 (2.59) 1.65 (1.32)Free sequencing 0.64 (0.27) 0.97 (0.09) 0.63 (0.36) 0.69 (0.27) 0.81 (0.23)Nonverbal

sequencing0.63 (0.08) 0.73 (0.06) 0.65 (0.09) 0.60 (0.10) 0.73 (0.07)

F. McGuigan, K. Salmon / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 91 (2005) 342–366 357

correct items in total recall, t (45)D 5.14, p < .00, were less accurate in free recallsequencing, t (43)D 3.31, p < .01, and were less accurate in photograph sequencing,t (45)D¡3.45, p < .01. In addition, there was a trend toward fewer errors, t (45)D 2.00,pD .052 (Table 3).

Preparation-only conditionThe signiWcant eVect of preparation condition, F (8,76)D 8.39, p < .00, was followed

by a univariate analysis for each measure of memory. There were signiWcant maineVects for total correct recall, F (2,42)D 22.12, p < .00, total errors, F (2,42)D 5.56,p < .01, and accuracy of nonverbal sequencing, F (2,42) D8.27, p < .001, but not foraccuracy of free recall sequencing, F (2,42)D 1.56, p > .10. Planned comparisons showedthat there were no signiWcant diVerences between the preparation-only and controlconditions with respect to any of the memory variables: total correct recall,t (44)D 1.42, p > .10, total errors, t (44)D¡.20, p > .10, accuracy of free recall sequencing,t (26)D 0.45, p > .10, and accuracy of photograph sequencing, t (44)D 1.48, p > .10. Incontrast, compared with children in the goals+ narrative + photographs +verbalizationcondition, children in the preparation-only condition reported fewer correct items intotal recall, t (44)D 6.44, p < .00, made fewer errors, t (44)D¡2.52, p < .05, and had lessaccurate photograph sequencing, t (44)D 4.12, p < .00. There was no diVerence betweenchildren in the preparation-only condition and those in the goals+ narrative +photographs+ verbalization condition with respect to the accuracy of free recallsequencing, t (27)D 1.29, p > .10 (Table 3).

Discussion

Simply viewing photographs (photographs condition) did not augment any aspectof children’s recall relative to the control condition. For memory of the event to beenhanced by preparation, it was necessary for the photographs to be accompanied bynarration. Interestingly, this pattern extended to nonverbal recall; photographs alonewere not suYcient to increase the accuracy of nonverbal sequencing relative to thecontrol condition.

On all measures of memory except photograph sequencing, the performance ofchildren who experienced the most complete form of preparation without participat-ing in the event (preparation-only condition) was inferior to that of children whoreceived the same preparation but who also participated in the event(goals + narrative + photographs + verbalization condition); children who experi-enced complete preparation followed by the event were not simply retelling the nar-ration provided during the preparation. Their superior recall was likely due to theirtwo relatively complete exposures to the event (the preparation and the event itself),consistent with a large body of Wndings that two exposures to an event results in bet-ter recall than does one exposure (e.g., Fivush, Kuebli, & Clubb, 1992; Gobbo, Mega,& Pipe, 2002; Hudson, 1990). It was noteworthy, however, that full preparation with-out the event (preparation-only condition) elicited a similar amount of correct recallas did participation in the event without preparation (control condition). We returnto this Wnding in the General Discussion.

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Experiment 2

Experiment 1A showed that children who received the most complete preparationrecalled more information than did those who received narration only. The completepreparation group, however, performed comparably to less prepared children whodid not receive verbalization. In that experiment, verbalization involved asking thechildren to restate the goals, actions, and objects of each activity after each photoboard had been presented and the experimenter had verbally labeled the event com-ponents. The impact of the verbalization might have been greater had the generationtaken a diVerent form than restatement. This possibility was suggested by Boland,Haden, and Ornstein (2003), who reported that preschool children’s recall of detailsof a staged event was improved if, during the event, parents used “wh” questions,used other elaborative talk devices (e.g., follow-ins, positive evaluations), and/ormade associations with the event and children’s past experiences and general knowl-edge. Furthermore, McGuigan and Salmon (2004) found that when children gener-ated information in the course of adult–child talk during or after an event, their recallfor that information was increased relative to when the adult narrated the sameinformation. Children in that experiment were asked to label and describe the objectsand actions of the event in response to the experimenter’s questions (e.g., “Tell whatyou put on the giraVe’s tail,” “What color was it?”); the experimenter did not Wrstprovide this information. Posing questions and asking children to make associationsmay enhance encoding and other aspects of memory because the material must beprocessed for meaning to a greater extent than is required by restatement of theexperimenter’s narration (e.g., Brainerd & Reyna, 2004; Brown & Craik, 2000).

In Experiment 2, therefore, we aimed to increase the impact of participation in thepreevent discussion by asking children to generate labels, descriptions, and associa-tions for aspects of the event, guided by photographs, without prior verbalization bythe experimenter (child-generate condition). We compared their recall with that ofchildren in the adult-provide condition, which was identical to thegoals + narrative + photographs condition in Experiment 1A. We anticipated thatchildren in the child-generate condition would report more correct items and makefewer errors than those in the adult-provide condition.

Method

Participants

The participants, of similar ethnicity and socioeconomic background to those inExperiments 1A and 1B, were 30 5- and 6-year-olds (12 girls and 18 boys, M D 70.00months, SD D 3.53, range D 64–80) recruited with parental consent from two schools.

Materials

The materials were identical to those used in Experiment 1A.

F. McGuigan, K. Salmon / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 91 (2005) 342–366 359

Procedure

Balanced with respect to school and gender, children were randomly assigned toeither an adult-provide or a child-generate condition.

PreparationChildren participated individually in a preparation session 1 day before the event.

All children were prepared by the same female experimenter. For children in theadult-provide condition, because the preparation was identical to that in thegoals + narration + photograph condition in Experiment 1A, they were asked to “lis-ten carefully to the story of the pretend zoo” so that they knew what to do when itwas their turn to visit the pretend zoo the following day. They were shown the sixphoto boards (one activity at a time) as they were told the “story of the pretend zoo,”in which the goals, actions, and objects of each activity were labeled verbally anddescribed. Following this, they were shown the goals board, and the goals associatedwith each activity were repeated by the experimenter in the correct temporalsequence.

Children in the child-generate condition were told that they were “going to dosome talking about the pretend zoo” so that they knew what to do when it wastheir turn to visit the pretend zoo the following day. They were shown the sixphoto boards (one activity at a time). As each photo board was presented, thechildren were informed of the associated goal (e.g., “You will get to become thezoo-keeper”). For each object presented on the photo board and any inferredaction, children were then asked questions to encourage their generation of labels(e.g., “What is that a photo of?, What will you do with that?”), descriptions (e.g.,“Tell me what the shirt looks like”), and associations with their prior knowledgeor experiences (e.g., “When have you worn a shirt like that?”). The experimenterprovided the correct verbal label for an object or action if the children wereunable to do so. The experimenter also narrated those actions of the event thatcould not be readily inferred from the photographs (e.g., “counting the carrotsand beans”). This ensured that, for children in the child-generate condition, all ofthe goals, actions, and objects of the event were labeled verbally and described,either by the children themselves or by the experimenter. To complete the prepa-ration, children in the child-generate condition were shown the goals board andthe children restated the goal associated with each activity. If the children wereunable to recall the relevant goal, it was provided by the experimenter. Sessionswere audiotaped for transcribing and coding. They lasted approximately 8 to10 min for children in the adult-provide condition and 10 to 12 min for children inthe child-generate condition.

EventOne day after the preparation, children participated in the event. They were

guided through the event by a second female experimenter. The event was identical tothat described in Experiment 1A.

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Memory interviewChildren were interviewed individually by a third female experimenter, not

involved in the previous experiments, using the same structured protocol as in Exper-iments 1A and 1B 14 or 15 days (M D 14.04, SD D 0.19) after the event.

CodingTranscripts of the preparation for children in the child-generate condition were

coded according to whether the children generated the verbal label for the object orinferred action (e.g., shirt, put on), a description of the object or action (e.g., green andXowery), or an association regarding the object or action (e.g., My dad has a beachshirt like that, I put on my school shirt by myself). Memory interviews were coded as inExperiment 1A.

ReliabilityReliability coding was performed on both of the preparation sessions and the

memory interview by the same experimenter as in Experiments 1A and 1B. Theexperimenter was not informed of the children’s experimental condition. Of the 30preparation transcripts, 6 were coded, and of the 30 memory transcripts, 8 werecoded. For both, an equal number of transcripts were selected at random from eachcondition. Reliability, calculated as (Agreements)/(Agreements + Disagreements),was 94% (range D 89–98) for the preparation transcripts and 91% (range D 82–97) forthe memory transcripts. Data analysis was based on the codes assigned by the pri-mary coder.

Results

There were no signiWcant diVerences between the adult-provide and child-generateconditions in age (months), t (28) D 0.51, p > .05, or EVT, t (28) D 0.61, p > .05. Inde-pendent sample t tests (p < .05) investigated the eVects of condition (adult-provideand child-generate) on verbal and nonverbal recall.

Verbal recall

Correct itemsWithin the child-generate condition, there was a mean of 31 labels (SD D 3.60,

range D 24–38); this is approximately 50% of the 32 objects and 31 actions available.In addition, 16 descriptions (SD D 2.60, range D 11–20) and 5 associations (SD D 2.76,range D 1–9) were generated; in contrast to actions and objects, descriptions andassociations have no absolute maxima. The correct items in total recall did not diVer:adult-provide (M D 37.43, SD D 10.69) and child-generate (M D 37.63, SD D 10.06),t (28) D 0.05, p > .05.

ErrorsThe number of errors in total recall did not diVer: adult-provide (M D 0.86,

SD D 0.53) and child-generate (M D 0.94, SD D 0.93), t (28) D 0.15, p > .05.

F. McGuigan, K. Salmon / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 91 (2005) 342–366 361

Sequencing of free recallThe accuracy of free recall sequencing did not diVer: adult-provide (M D 0.83,

SD D 0.12) and child-generate (M D 0.87, SD D 0.15), t (28) D 0.87, p > .05.

Nonverbal recall

The accuracy of photograph sequencing did not diVer: adult-provide (M D 0.73,SD D 0.07) and child-generate (M D 0.70, SD D 0.09), t (28) D 0.93, p > .05.

Discussion

There were no diVerences between the child-generate and adult-provide conditionson any dimensions of recall. One explanation is that the recall was at ceiling levels.This, however, is unlikely; comparison with our earlier experiment (McGuigan &Salmon, 2004) using the same event with only minor modiWcation indicated that thechildren in the current experiment reported a smaller proportion of objects (38%)than was reported under conditions of optimal recall (postevent talk condition, 66%).A second possible explanation relates to the relatively small amount of material gen-erated. Only 50% of all possible actions and objects were generated, and although alarge number of descriptors and associations were also possible, the number gener-ated was relatively small. We return to this point in the General Discussion.

General discussion

In three experiments, we investigated the conditions under which preparation 1day before a novel event inXuenced 6-year-olds’ recall when interviewed 2 weekslater. We were particularly interested in whether verbal preparation (narration of theupcoming event) would enhance recall of the event or whether also including photo-graphs would be necessary. We found that the impact of pre-event narration on theamount of information recalled correctly was relatively small. Although providingthe goals and narration increased the accuracy with which children sequenced freerecall, it was only when the narration was supplemented with photographs that cor-rect information was increased relative to the control condition (Experiment 1A). Inour earlier research as well, pre-event talk had minimal impact on the correct infor-mation reported by 3- and 5-year-olds, but the adult–child discussion took place 2 to3 days before the event (McGuigan & Salmon, 2004); reducing the delay between thepreparation and the event in the current experiments did not markedly increase itsimpact. That photographs alone did not enhance correct verbal recall or boost pho-tograph sequencing (Experiment 1B) suggests that both narration and photographswere necessary for verbal and nonverbal recall to exceed the control condition. Nei-ther was suYcient by itself.

Nonetheless, narration reduced errors in children’s memory reports. This Wndingreplicates our previous research (McGuigan & Salmon, 2004) and suggests that dis-cussion of a future event places “boundaries” around the event representation, such

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that when the event is retrieved during the interview there is relatively little distortionof features of the event or intrusion of information from other experiences.

A number of developmental factors might account for the weak impact of pre-event talk (without photographs) on young children’s memory. These include youngchildren’s poor reasoning about future events in the absence of generalized eventknowledge (Benson, 1997; Friedman, 2003; Hudson, 2002). An important contribu-tor is also likely to be that the pre-event information is encoded only in the semanticmodality; indeed, it may have been too poorly encoded to be integrated with theevent itself in memory and may also have undergone rapid forgetting between theevent and the interview (Sutherland et al., 2003). Therefore, photographs can confera number of beneWts to memory. First, they ensure that encoding occurs in both ver-bal and visual modalities (Johnson, 1985; Murachver et al., 1996). Second, they mayimprove children’s comprehension of the verbal material, consistent with researchon the impact of pictures on children’s recall of prose (Holmes, 1987; Levin et al.,1976; Ricci & Beal, 2002; Small et al., 1993). Finally, the high degree of feature over-lap between the photographs and the objects in the event may maximize the likeli-hood of retrieval, and reinstatement, of the verbal and nonverbal preparatoryinformation during the event itself (Tulving & Thompson, 1973). Our Wndings indi-cate, therefore, that verbal preparation alone has a limited impact on 6-year-olds’recall and that a boost to memory is provided by photographs as pictures highly spe-ciWc to the event.

We also investigated the impact on recall of children’s participation during thepreparation. In Experiment 1A, photographs with goals and narration followed bythe children’s restatement of the goals, actions, and objects in the event signiWcantlyincreased the correct information recalled relative to goals and narration alone. Inother words, asking the children to generate information improved recall. Althoughwe cannot rule out the possibility that this was due to receiving the information twicerather than to generation per se, it is nonetheless consistent with a robust body ofresearch showing that, relative to being provided with information, generating mate-rial and processing it for meaning promotes better recall (e.g., Brainerd & Reyna,2004; Brown & Craik, 2000). In Experiment 2, we endeavored to increase the impactof child participation by including elements of the elaborative parental conversa-tional style that has been shown to enhance children’s recall of current and past expe-riences (Boland et al., 2003; Ornstein, Haden, & Hedrick, 2004). The children wereprompted to generate the labels and descriptors for each photo board in response to“wh” questions and were asked to make associations between the objects and actionsand their own experiences. There was no additional eVect of child generation relativeto adult narration. One reason might be the relatively small amount of informationgenerated. On average, approximately 50% of actions and objects were verbalized,and children made very few associations with their other experiences. Real-worldparent–child discussions about future experiences provide clues, for future research,as to how children’s participation could be maximized. Hudson (2002, 2004) reportedthat such conversations encompass the future events, general event knowledge, pastmemories, and hypothetical events; for example, mothers’ use of hypothetical lan-guage is associated with children’s participation in the discussion.

F. McGuigan, K. Salmon / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 91 (2005) 342–366 363

Our Wndings concerning the diVerential memorial impact of the various prepara-tory activities have important implications for contexts in which young children mustbe prepared for an upcoming novel event as occurs, for example, in medical settings.To our knowledge, no research has investigated the impact of preparation on chil-dren’s memory of a medical procedure, yet such research is important not only toensure that the preparation enhances children’s knowledge and understanding butalso because inaccurate negative memory of a medical procedure can result in height-ened distress during subsequent procedures (Chen et al., 1999). Preparatory strategiesinclude telling children about the details of the procedure, its setting, and the possibleassociated sensory experiences, at times with the addition of dolls, models, stories, orWlms (Blount, Piira, Cohen, & Cheng, in press; SpaVord et al., 2002; Suls & Wan,1989). The current Wndings suggest that, when preparing children aged 6 years orunder for a novel medical procedure, discussion might not be eVective, at least whenthis occurs only once. Important questions also remain about optimal means of sup-plementing verbally presented information. To the extent that the aims includeboosting encoding and maximizing the likelihood that the preparation will be inte-grated with the event in memory, strategies that provide maximal overlap with thefeatures of the medical procedure are likely to be most eVective (e.g., photographs,videotape, a visit to the examination room), whereas dolls and toys may be less so(e.g., DeLoache & Marzolf, 1995; Salmon, Bidrose, & Pipe, 1995; Steward, 1993).Theoretically driven research is necessary to clarify optimal strategies for ensuringthat young children can beneWt from preparatory information.

On several measures of memory (correct information, errors, and accuracy of pho-tograph sequencing), the performance of children who received the most completepreparation (narration, photographs, and verbalization) without participation in theevent (preparation-only condition) did not diVer signiWcantly from that of childrenwho participated in the event with empty language but without preparation (controlcondition) (Experiment 1B). Theoretical considerations highlight the privileged posi-tion of direct experience in establishing event representations (e.g., Nelson, 1986), andresearch shows that recall is superior when events are experienced directly ratherthan vicariously (e.g., listening to a story or narrative) (Baker-Ward, Hess, & Flanna-gan, 1990; Gobbo et al., 2002; Murachver et al., 1996; Roebers, Gelhaar, & Schneider,2004; Rudy & Goodman, 1991; Tobey & Goodman, 1992). As noted by Murachverand colleagues (1996) and as indicated by our Wndings, however, direct experiencemight not always confer greater beneWt to memory. Rich vicarious experience may berecalled as well as is relatively impoverished direct experience, that is, experiencewithout language.

One limitation of our research is that we have focused on only one age group, butthe Wndings provide clues as to some of the factors that might enable children to ben-eWt from preparatory discussion before a novel event. For example, with greater lin-guistic sophistication, children may be less reliant on adult language to compensatefor impoverished verbal encoding. Furthermore, increases in real-world knowledgeand in the ability to retrieve information from memory to make their own associa-tions with other experiences may enable older children to participate more fully in apreparatory discussion, with potential beneWts to memory. Charting the

364 F. McGuigan, K. Salmon / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 91 (2005) 342–366

developmental course of the ability to beneWt signiWcantly from discussion about anupcoming novel event is an important area for future research.

In conclusion, the extent to which preparatory activities inXuence 6-year-olds’recall of an upcoming novel event is inXuenced by a number of factors, including theaspect of memory assessed, the amount of information provided during the discus-sion, its supplementation by speciWc visual material, the extent of the children’s par-ticipation, and the children’s level of language skill. Narration only decreased errorsand enhanced the sequencing of children’s reports of the event, but it did not increasethe amount of information remembered.

Acknowledgments

We thank the children, parents, teachers, and principals at the participatingschools and preschools; Rowena Conroy and Kay Pegg for help with data collection;and Kevin McConkey for comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

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