DEVELOPMENTAL-TRENDS IN VISUOSPATIAL ANALYSIS AND PLANNING .2. MEMORY FOR A COMPLEX FIGURE

The ability of children between the ages of 6 and 12 to draw the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure immediately after having copied the figure was assessed with an existing scoring system, as well as additional measures that the researchers developed to more precisely describe the process used by children in drawing this figure. As expected, younger children were poorer in their ability to recall the figure than older children. All children, regardless of age, were more likely to use continuous lines when drawing the main units of the figure from memory than when copying the figure. The approach used to analyze the figure when copying it from a model influenced the accuracy of the information recalled and the process by which it was recalled. That is, those children who broke the figure up into smaller units during copy were also more likely to recall the figure in a similar fashion and were more likely to recall less about the figure.