A Developmental Look at Scripts through the Study of Action
Date
1992
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Haverford College. Department of Psychology
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
This study looks at action as an indicator of script organization in young children (approximately three years old), older children (approximately 5 years old), and adults. Subjects participated in two experiments, where one study varied the objects available to complete the task and the other manipulated the spatial arrangement of the available items. Subjects' actions were coded to determine the effect of age and object availability or spatial arrangement on the number of actions performed, the number of errors and microslips committed, the number of functional variations made, and the amount of time taken to perform the task. We predicted different age effects for each experiment. While our specific hypotheses were not always supported, we did find age effects for all conditions, with children generally making more actions, errors, microslips, and functional variations than adults. Most interestingly, younger children made the most errors and microslips in the object task, while older children performed the most errors and microslips in the spatial task. In addition, children took longer than adults to complete both task types. By examining actions and related errors across age groups, we hope to learn more about the organizational development of our general event representations and about how our ability to implement these scripts changes over time.