The spacing effect in children's generalization of knowledge: Allowing children time to forget promotes their ability to learn

Child Development Perspectives

Volumn 8, Issue 3, 2014, Pages 163-168

  Vlach, Haley A ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON   (United States)

Author keywords

Category learning; Cognitive development; Conceptual development; Forgetting; Generalization; Memory development; Word learning

Indexed keywords

EID: 84906248916     PISSN: 17508592     EISSN: 17508606     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/cdep.12079     Document Type: Article

References (25)

1. Bauer, P. J., Wenner, J. A., Dropik, P. L., Wewerka, S. S., & Howe, M. L. (2000). Parameters of remembering and forgetting in the transition from infancy to early childhood. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 65(4, Serial No. 263). doi:10.1111/1540-5834.00104
2. Birnbaum, M., Kornell, N., Bjork, E. L., & Bjork, R. A. (2013). Why interleaving enhances inductive learning: The role of discrimination and retrieval. Memory & Cognition, 41, 392-402. doi:10.3758/s13421-012-0272-7
3. Brainerd, C. J., Reyna, V. F., Howe, M. L., & Kingma, J. (1990). The development of forgetting and reminiscence. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 53(3-4, Serial No. 222). doi:10.2307/1166106
4. Bransford, J. D., & Schwartz, D. L. (1999). Rethinking transfer: A simple proposal with multiple implications. In A. Iran-Nejad & P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Review of research in education (Vol. 24, pp. 61-101). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. doi:10.3102/0091732X024001061
5. Carvalho, P. F., & Goldstone, R. L. (2014). Putting category learning in order: Category structure and temporal arrangement affect the benefit of interleaved over blocked study. Memory & Cognition, 42, 481-495. doi:10.3758/s13421-013-0371-0
6. Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 354-380. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354
7. Delaney, P. F., Verkoeijen, P. J., & Spirgel, A. (2010). Spacing and testing effects: A deeply critical, lengthy, and at times discursive review of the literature. In B. H. Ross (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation: Advances in research and theory (Vol. 60, pp. 63-147). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. doi:10.1016/S0079-7421(10)53003-2
8. Ebbinghaus, H. (1964). Memory: A contribution to experimental psychology (H. A. Ruger, C. E. Bussenius, & E. R. Hilgard, Trans.). New York, NY: Dover. (Original work published in 1885)
9. Gagné, R. M. (1950). The effect of sequence of presentation of similar items on the learning of paired associates. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 40, 61-73. doi:10.1037/h0060804
10. Gluckman, M., Vlach, H. A., & Sandhofer, C. M. (2014). Spacing simultaneously promotes multiple forms of learning in children's science curriculum. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 28, 266-273. doi:10.1002/acp.2997
11. Kang, S. H. K., & Pashler, H. (2012). Learning painting styles: Spacing is advantageous when it promotes discriminative contrast. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26, 97-103. doi:10.1002/acp.1801
12. Kornell, N., & Bjork, R. A. (2008). Learning concepts and categories: Is spacing the "enemy of induction"? Psychological Science, 19, 585-592. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02127.x
13. Kornell, N., Castel, A. D., Eich, T. S., & Bjork, R. A. (2010). Spacing as the friend of both memory and induction in younger and older adults. Psychology and Aging, 25, 498-503. doi:10.1037/a0017807
14. Kurtz, K. H., & Hovland, C. I. (1956). Concept learning with differing sequences of exemplars. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 51, 239-243. doi:10.1037/h0040295
15. Rohrer, D. (2012). Interleaving helps students distinguish among similar concepts. Educational Psychology Review, 24, 355-367. doi:10.1007/s10648-012-9201-3
16. Rovee-Collier, C., Hayne, H., & Colombo, M. (2001). The development of implicit and explicit memory. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/aicr.24
17. Toppino, T. C., & Gerbier, E. (2014). About practice: Repetition, spacing, and abstraction. In B. H. Ross (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation: Advances in research and theory (Vol. 60, pp. 113-189). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-800090-8.00004-4
18. Vlach, H. A., Ankowski, A. A., & Sandhofer, C. M. (2012). At the same time or apart in time? The role of presentation timing and retrieval dynamics in generalization. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 38, 246-254. doi:10.1037/a0025260
19. Vlach, H. A., & Johnson, S. P. (2013). Memory constraints on infants' cross-situational statistical learning. Cognition, 127, 375-382. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2013.02.015
20. Vlach, H. A., & Sandhofer, C. M. (2012a). Distributing learning over time: The spacing effect in children's acquisition and generalization of science concepts. Child Development, 83, 1137-1144. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01781.x
21. Vlach, H. A., & Sandhofer, C. M. (2012b). Fast mapping across time: Memory mechanisms support children's ability to retain words. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 46. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00046
22. Vlach, H. A., Sandhofer, C. M., & Bjork, R. A. (2014). Equal spacing and expanding schedules in children's categorization and generalization. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 123, 129-137. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2014.01.004
23. Vlach, H. A., Sandhofer, C. M., & Kornell, N. (2008). The spacing effect in children's memory and category induction. Cognition, 109, 163-167. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2008.07.013
24. Wahlheim, C. N., Dunlosky, J., & Jacoby, L. L. (2011). Spacing enhances the learning of natural concepts: An investigation of mechanisms, metacognition, and aging. Memory & Cognition, 39, 750-763. doi:10.3758/s13421-010-0063-y
25. Zulkiply, N., & Burt, J. S. (2013). The exemplar interleaving effect in inductive learning: Moderation by the difficulty of category discriminations. Memory & Cognition, 41, 16-27. doi:10.3758/s13421-012-0238-9