A developmental study of recall from natural categories

27 6th graders, 25 college students, and 26 older adults (aged 57-77 yrs) were asked to list exemplars from the semantic domains of animals and occupations for 6 min each. Cumulative recall curves were found to fit a hyperbolic model of recall and to be stable over age in the animal domain; in the occupation domain, 6th graders reached asymptote earlier. A slope-difference algorithm was used to identify clusters within recall. It was found that the size of clusters was stable over time. Older adults tended to find new clusters at a faster rate in the later stages of recall, and the youngest and oldest Ss reported items within clusters at a slower rate. Results demonstrate the stability of some basic functions in semantic memory and support a production deficiency view of reported deficits in episodic memory tasks. (15 ref)