Journal of experimental child psychology
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This study examines children's modification of their own retrieval processes in a cued recall task. Each experiment had multiple study-test trails with triplets of categorically related words (Horse-Pig-Cow). Category-orienting questions were asked at acquisition, and each trial had different triplet stimuli. ⋯ The results showed induction of an effective retrieval strategy in the situations of maximum retrieval support even by the 7-year olds, and developmental differences occurred in the situations where the retrieval cues provided few hints about the acquisition encoding operation. The results suggest that monitoring and modification of retrieval processes should be distinguished and that monitoring is necessary but not sufficient for induction of an effective retrieval strategy. The results have implications for understanding children's strategy-utilization deficiencies in memory tasks.