Age Differences in Content-General Knowledge When Content-Specific Knowledge Is Equated

ABSTRACT

A novel computer-delivered training task was given to children (grades 1 and 3) and adults to observe their differences in content-general knowledge while equating content-specific knowledge. The training task taught subjects over a period of trials and days the names of eight fantasy creatures that regularly differed on four attributes. Group differences were found on the number of trials needed to reach criterion. First graders differed from adults on a due task based on the creatures’ names and attributes. Each group equalled or bettered their score on the clue task 2 weeks later. Children’s performance on the clue task was correlated more strongly than adults’ performance with multiple accesses of domain knowledge during the learning task. These results suggest that young children are more dependent on multiple accesses of domain knowledge than are older children or adults.