Children's instrumental inferences using an implicit memory test

To investigate whether elementary school children infer instruments implied by actions in single sentence contexts, 14 sentences were presented to 3rd graders and 6th graders with the instruments explicitly not stated. Children were instructed to read and memorize each of the fourteen sentences (the control group) or to generate an instrument for each sentence during reading and memorizing (the generation group). They were given two types of tests, first a word-stem completion test and second a cued recall lest or a free recall test. Each group of children showed priming effects. Children in the generation group recalled more sentences than those in the control group. The results suggest that even 3rd graders infer instruments during reading.