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Domain-specific knowledge and memory performance: A comparison of high- and low-aptitude children.

1989; American Psychological Association; Volume: 81; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1037/0022-0663.81.3.306

1939-2176

Wolfgang Schneider, Joachim Körkel, Franz Emanuel Weinert,

Visual and Cognitive Learning Processes

Two studies compared memory performance and text comprehension of groups that were equivalent on domain-specific knowledge but differed in overall aptitude, to investigate whether prior knowledge about a particular domain or overall aptitude level was more important when the task was to acquire and use new information in the domain of interest.Both studies dealt with third-, fifuV, and seventh-grade soccer experts' and novices' memory and comprehension of a story dealing with a soccer game.Several measures of memory performance, memory monitoring, and text comprehension were used.Levels of soccer knowledge and of overall aptitude were varied in a factorial design.Neither study detected significant differences between high-aptitude and low-aptitude experts, regardless of their ages.Low aptitude experts outperformed high-aptitude novices on all memory and comprehension measures.The results indicate that domain-specific knowledge can compensate for low overall aptitude on domain-related cognitive tasks.Since the late 1970s, a growing body of research has examined the effects of domain-specific knowledge on memory strategies and performance on various memory tasks.These studies showed that children's prior knowledge substantially affects their choice of memory strategies and significantly influences memory performance (see Bjorklund,