Script e compiti cognitivi: l'influenza della ricostruzione sul ricordo di eventi in sequenza

We investigated the relationship between the type of task requested to the child at the moment of presentation of a given material and the recall of the material itself. Sixty 4-year-olds and sixty 6-year-olds were presented with two different event sequences composed by six images each. The sequences were built on the basis of acts most frequently mentioned in the scripts held by children of that age and presented an invariant sequence of acts. Children of both ages were randomly assigned to two different instructional conditions: in the first one pictures were presented in the correct order and children were asked to describe the sequence; in the second condition pictures were presented in a scrambled order and children were requested to reconstruct the correct sequence. After a week all children were asked to recall the two event sequences. Differences in reconstruction ability were observed in relation to age and type of sequence. On the whole reconstruction led to more acts recalled and to fewer intrusions than description of ordered sequence. This was more evident in the older children and as regards the more difficult to reconstruct sequence. These findings indicate that the request to reconstruct the sequence aids semantic processing of the material, enhancing recall and offsetting the initial drawback of being presented with a misordered sequence.