Developmental differences in judgments of recency and frequency: Quantitative or qualitative?

The basis of young children's performance of judgments of recency and frequency was investigated using a modified version of Huppert and Piercy's [Huppert, F.A., & Piercy, M. (1978). The role of trace strength in recency and frequency judgements by amnesic and control subjects. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 30, 347–354] paradigm. Children aged 4 and 6 years viewed pictures of nameable objects presented either once or three times on either of two consecutive days. At test, children judged how recently (“today” versus “yesterday”) or frequently (once versus three times) each picture had been presented. Developmental improvements in performance were observed for judgments of recency and frequency. Evidence for responding based on episode-specific information was found for both age groups, showing that young children do not confuse recency of presentation with frequency of presentation. There was no evidence for a qualitative shift from reliance on trace strength to reliance on episode specific information across this age range.