RELATION BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND MEMORY - A REMINDER THAT CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSALITY

Although many memory development researchers study knowledge differences, studies typically are correlational, rarely quantify knowledge, and usually compare only those with very advanced (experts) and elementary (novices) knowledge. The 2 reported studies investigated experimentally whether increased knowledge (as defined below) was causally related to improvements in recall by testing 8–11‐year‐old children (Experiment 1) or college students (Experiment 2) for knowledge and recall before and/or after they saw videotapes about birds. 4 different tests quantified knowledge: (1) Grouping—placing 45 birds into self‐defined groups; (2) Listing—generating birds' names for 6 different categories (e.g., songbirds); (3) Facts—generating facts about each bird; (4) Matching—choosing the best category for each bird. Although knowledge and memory measures correlated significantly, and most knowledge measures improved significantly after the viewing of the videotapes, recall and strategies generally did not improve. Something else, such as knowledge restructuring or faster activation of related knowledge, may be necessary before knowledge can be utilized to facilitate recall. Copyright © 1991, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved