ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the one aspect of young children's long-term retention, that of the linkage between their memory performance and prior knowledge of the events being reported. The research presented is thus embedded in two partially overlapping literatures, one concerned with the development of long-term retention and forgetting and the other dealing with the operation of the "knowledge base" in permanent memory. The chapter discusses the abilities of 3- to 7-year-olds to remember the details of a routine physical examination and a radiological procedure involving urinary catheterization. The arguments presented earlier suggest that the children who participated in the Doctor Visit Study were able to remember the details of a specific visit to the doctor for a routine checkup. From this perspective, therefore, it seems unlikely that the children's memory performance was driven by reconstructive processes at retrieval.
