# The effect of articulatory rehearsal on dual-retrieval processes in semantically related list recall: A comparison between 8- and 10-year-old children and young adults

Léa Hami, Laurence Casini, Marlène Abadie

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Léa Hami, Laurence Casini, Marlène Abadie. The effect of articulatory rehearsal on dual-retrieval processes in semantically related list recall: A comparison between 8- and 10-year-old children and young adults. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2026, 262, pp.106403. 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106403. hal-05342336

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# The effect of articulatory rehearsal on dual-retrieval processes in semantically related list recall: A comparison between 8- and 10-year-old children and young adults

Léa Hami<sup>a,*</sup>, Laurence Casini<sup>a,2</sup>, Marlène Abadie<sup>a,b,*,1</sup>

## ARTICLE INFO

**Keywords:**

Articulatory rehearsal

Working memory

Semantic errors

Dual-retrieval model

## ABSTRACT

When asked to remember a list of items for later testing, we often repeat earlier items to ourselves as later items are presented. This process, called “rehearsal,” develops during childhood. The present study examined the role of rehearsal in recalling lists of semantically related words and used the dual-retrieval model to pinpoint the retrieval processes modified by rehearsal in children and adults. Thirty-one children (Mage = 8.8 years, SD = 0.5, 12 females and 19 males) and 29 adults (Mage = 20.5 years, SD = 2.7, 23 females and 6 males) performed a complex span task consisting of maintaining words to be recalled later in immediate and delayed tests, while performing a concurrent task. The difficulty of the task was adjusted according to each participant’s abilities. Participants performed the task either silently, which allowed them to use rehearsal, or under articulatory suppression, which reduced rehearsal opportunities. The results showed that, although adults had a higher rate of correct recall, children benefited from rehearsal opportunities for both immediate and delayed correct recall. There were also fewer semantic errors in both age groups when rehearsal could be used. The dual-retrieval model revealed that rehearsal fosters direct access to verbatim memory and reconstruction based on gist memory. Finally, the difference in correct recall and direct access between the two age groups decreased when rehearsal could be used. These findings suggest that, although rehearsal is more effective for adults, children benefit more from it for correct recall and direct access to verbatim traces.

Memory undergoes a series of significant developmental changes from early childhood to young adulthood. As we grow older, not only do we remember more events from our lives with greater accuracy, but we also become more likely to transform the details of some memories to make them consistent with the general meaning of our experiences (Brainerd & Reyna, 2023). These seemingly contradictory developmental trends are actually the result of different memory representations. Several theories in cognitive psychology (e.g., Brainerd & Reyna, 1990; Craik, 2002) and cognitive neuroscience (e.g., Moscovitch et al., 2016) distinguish different levels of memory representations, ranging from specific traces of the literal surface form of events (verbatim representations) to less specific traces of their meanings (gist representations). Both verbatim and gist representations increase during childhood development (Brainerd et al., 2008). As children develop, they become increasingly able to directly access verbatim representations, enabling them

<footnote><sup>a</sup> Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, CRPN, Marseille, France</footnote>

<footnote><sup>b</sup> Institut Universitaire de France, France</footnote>

<footnote>* Corresponding authors at: Centre de Recherche en Psychologie et Neurosciences, UMR7077, 3, place Victor Hugo, 13003 Marseille, France.
E-mail addresses: lea.hami@univ-amu.fr (L. Hami), marlene.abadie@univ-amu.fr (M. Abadie).</footnote>

<footnote n="1">1 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5993-2393.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2266-9034.</footnote>
to recall past experiences with greater precision. They also become better at reconstructing these experiences from the semantic in-
formation contained in gist representations. Nevertheless, this reconstruction process can lead to memory transformation and semantic
errors, commonly referred to as false memories (Brainerd et al., 2002).

Recent studies have revealed that mechanisms that enable the short-term maintenance of information in working memory (WM) play a crucial role in the retrieval of verbatim and gist representations and the occurrence of false memories in adults (Abadie & Camos, 2019) as well as in young children from 4 years of age (Rousselle et al., 2023). WM is an active memory component dedicated to temporary maintenance (a few seconds) and processing of a limited amount of information useful for the current activity (Logie et al., 2021). Numerous mechanisms for maintaining information in WM have been described. Notably, research has shown that articulatory rehearsal, a specific mechanism for the temporary maintenance of verbal information in WM, enhances the retrieval of verbatim details and reduces the occurrence of false memories in immediate memory tests in adults (Abadie & Camos, 2019). However, it remains unclear whether this mechanism, whose efficiency in memory maintenance increases throughout childhood development (Elliott et al., 2021), also promotes the retrieval of precise verbatim traces and reduces the formation of false memories in children.

The present study has two main objectives. First, it aims to examine the role of rehearsal on correct recall and semantic errors in young adults compared to children aged 8–10 years, who already use this mechanism, albeit less effectively than adults. Second, it seeks to examine the retrieval processes underlying the effect of rehearsal on correct and incorrect recall in adults and children. The dual-retrieval model developed by Brainerd et al. (2009) was applied to recall test data. This Multinomial Processing Tree (MPT) model is a statistical model that allows the dissociation and measurement of the contributions of verbatim and gist retrieval processes (i.e., direct access and reconstruction, respectively) to recall performance.

Verbatim and gist retrieval in WM tasks

Very few studies have examined the retrieval of verbatim and gist representations in WM tasks. Abadie and Camos (2019) were the first to do so, using the conjoint recognition procedure and MPT model (Brainerd et al., 1999) to disentangle the effects of verbatim and gist retrieval and measure the exact contributions of each to WM performance in young adults. The conjoint recognition model is defined over experiments in which participants first encode lists of semantically related items (e.g., a word or picture list with items such as goat, climber, ski, glacier, etc.) and then complete a recognition test in which they must discriminate between three types of probes: studied items (e.g., ski), new items (i.e., distractors) semantically related to the studied ones (e.g., mountain), and new items unrelated to the studied ones (e.g., lamp). Brainerd et al. (1999) demonstrated that the resulting data space provides sufficient degree of freedom to estimate identifiable parameters for verbatim and gist memory, as well as bias parameters. Abadie and Camos (2019) adapted the conjoint recognition procedure to WM tasks. Participants were presented with lists of four semantically related words, which they had to maintain over a few-second retention interval filled with a concurrent task. They then completed a recognition test in which they had to discriminate between studied items and new items that were either semantically related or unrelated to those studied. This study was the first to show that the conjoint recognition MPT model, which assumes that recognition performance depends on verbatim and gist memory as well as bias parameters, provides an accurate description of recognition performance in WM tasks. This finding has been later replicated with children as young as 4 years old (Rousselle et al., 2023). Overall, these studies showed that both verbatim and gist traces contribute to WM performance and that gist retrieval also underlie false memories in WM tasks.

Articulatory rehearsal strengthens verbatim retrieval in WM tasks in adults

Importantly, Abadie and Camos (2019) demonstrated that articulatory rehearsal, a mechanism specifically dedicated to verbal information maintenance in WM, facilitates verbatim retrieval in young adults. Originally conceptualized in Baddeley's multicomponent model (Baddeley, 1986), this mechanism is conceived as a domain-specific mechanism that can maintain a small amount of verbal information (i.e., up to four items in young adults, Barrouillet et al., 2021). This model assumes that verbal information is maintained in a phonological loop consisting of a phonological store and an articulatory loop, which reactivate decayed phonological traces through their articulation. While not all WM models presuppose the existence of a phonological loop, most of them acknowledge the importance of rehearsal in maintaining verbal information in WM (see Logie et al., 2021; Ward, 2024, for reviews).

Abadie and Camos (2019; Exp. 2) reduced opportunities to use rehearsal to maintain lists of four semantically related words during the retention interval of their WM task described above. Participants engaged in a concurrent task of verifying equations orally. This procedure, known as articulatory suppression, reduces rehearsal opportunities because the concurrent task involves processing verbal material aloud, which disrupts rehearsal of the to-be remembered word lists (e.g., Camos et al., 2009). In Experiment 4 of Abadie and Camos' (2019) study, the procedure was identical to that in Experiment 2 except that participants performed a silent visuospatial concurrent task during the retention interval. Consequently, participants were afforded the opportunity to use rehearsal in order to maintain the word lists, given that the concurrent task entailed nonverbal material and was executed silently. In both experiments, the concurrent equation verification (Exp. 2) or visuospatial (Exp. 4) task was demanding in terms of attention and reduced the possibilities for using attentional maintenance strategies. A statistical comparison of the two experiments revealed that articulatory suppression decreased correct recognition of studied items and increased false recognition of semantically related distractors. In addition, reducing rehearsal opportunities significantly impaired the parameter estimate for verbatim memory in the conjoint recognition model. These findings suggest that the use of rehearsal reduces the occurrence of false memories in WM recognition task in adults by fostering verbatim retrieval.

Consistent findings have been reported in other studies using a classical recognition procedure (Atkins et al., 2011; Macé & Caza, 2011). For example, in Atkins et al.'s (2011) study, participants were required to maintain semantically related four-word lists over a
3-4 s retention interval during which they had to count aloud (i.e., articulatory suppression condition) or remain silent. Results showed that articulatory suppression made participants more prone to semantic interference, i.e., they were slower to reject semantically related distractors, and they produced more false recognition of these distractors compared to the silent condition.

The benefits of articulatory rehearsal for maintaining semantically related word lists extend beyond recognition-specific retrieval processes. Studies using WM recall tasks have shown that articulatory rehearsal enhances correct recall of semantically related word lists and reduces semantic recall errors in both young (Abadie et al., 2024) and older adults (Piroelle et al., 2025). Unfortunately, as these studies only used a single recall test, they were unable to disentangle the contribution of verbatim and gist memory to WM performance. This was due to insufficient degrees of freedom to estimate identifiable parameters for verbatim and gist memory, as well as bias parameters, using an MPT model such as conjoint recognition (Brainerd et al., 2022).

## WM maintenance opportunities and verbatim and gist retrieval in children

Recent studies have applied the conjoint recognition procedure and model to WM tasks in children. Rousselle et al. (2023; Exp. 2) presented lists of four or five semantically related words to 4- and 8-year-olds, respectively. After a brief retention interval, during which the children performed a concurrent task, an immediate recognition test based on the conjoint recognition procedure was administered. In half of the trials, the concurrent task was a color naming task in which the children had to name the color of smileys aloud while pressing the corresponding colored key. This task was attention-demanding and was performed under articulatory suppression, thereby reducing opportunities for maintenance through attention and rehearsal. In the other half of the trials, the concurrent task was a detection task, whereby the children had to press the space bar when a circle appeared. This task required minimal attention and was performed in silence, enabling the use of WM maintenance mechanisms.

Recognition performance, as well as underlying memory representations, were examined. The conjoint recognition model fit the data well, showing that the memory and bias parameters postulated by the model also account for recognition data in children. The results showed that 8-year-olds had better correct recognition performance than 4-year-olds, which was associated with an increased retrieval of verbatim representations. In contrast, both age groups showed gist-based false recognition of related distractors, and their incidence did not vary with age.

However, manipulating WM maintenance mechanisms had no effect on recognition performance or the memory and bias parameters of the conjoint recognition model. Abadie and Rousselle (2023) administered a similar task to children aged 8-10 and young adults. The conjoint recognition model fit the data well. The results showed an increase in false recognition of related distractors in adults compared to children, accompanied by an increase in phantom recollection (i.e., very strong gist traces that generate illusory recollective support for related distractors; Brainerd et al., 2001). Similarly to Rousselle et al. (2023), the manipulation of WM maintenance mechanisms had no effect on recognition performance.

Overall, these two studies showed that, in WM tasks, verbatim memory underlies the increase of correct recognition with age during childhood, while gist memory underlies the occurrence of false memories, which increases from childhood to adulthood. Manipulating WM mechanisms had no effect on recognition performance or the underlying memory representations. At first glance, this might suggest that children do not maintain information in WM. However, numerous previous studies have shown that children as young as 5 can use rehearsal strategies (e.g., Elliott et al., 2021; Morey et al., 2025) and by the age of 7 they can use attentional mechanisms to maintain information in WM (e.g., Camos & Barrouillet, 2018). For instance, a multi-lab experiment involving a large sample from 5- to 10-year-olds showed that, although 5-year-olds verbalize less than older children, they could spontaneously use speech behavior to maintain information in WM (Elliott et al., 2021). Furthermore, children who engaged in rehearsal recalled more than children who did not.

Consequently, the absence of an effect of manipulating WM maintenance mechanisms on performance in the experiments by Rousselle et al. (2023) or Abadie and Rousselle (2023) does not appear to be attributable to the fact that children do not yet maintain information in WM. One potential explanation for this phenomenon could rather be attributed to the use of a recognition test that does not encourage the active maintenance of items during the retention interval (Uittenhove et al., 2019). This hypothesis was tested in a series of experiments using recall tests with 5- and 8-year-olds (Rousselle et al., 2025). Participants performed a complex span task in which they had to maintain lists of three or four semantically related words for a few seconds. Between each word, a retention interval was introduced during which they performed a concurrent task varying WM maintenance opportunities as in Rousselle et al. (2023). The results of these recall experiments did indeed show an effect of manipulating WM maintenance opportunities. The correct recall performance of children in both age groups was reduced in the condition where WM maintenance opportunities were also reduced. Semantic recall errors (i.e., false memories) increased in this condition, but only in the 8-year-olds. Younger children made more non-semantic errors. These findings suggest that effective maintenance of information in WM could counteract the emergence of false memories in children, at least from the age of 8.

However, there was only one recall test in Rousselle et al.'s (2025) study, making it impossible to determine the relative contribution of verbatim and gist representations to WM performance. In addition, the role of articulatory rehearsal cannot be separated from that of other attentional maintenance mechanisms on children's WM performance. Given the crucial role of articulatory rehearsal in maintaining verbatim representations and reducing false memory occurrence in adults, it is important to distinguish its effect from that of other WM maintenance mechanisms in children, for whom all these mechanisms undergo significant developmental related changes.
## The present study

The first aim of the present experiment was to investigate the specific role of articulatory rehearsal on correct recall and semantic errors in children and young adults. Previous studies had previously failed to differentiate between the role of articulatory rehearsal and that of other WM maintenance mechanisms in children. This constitutes a novel contribution of the present study. We compared the performance of children aged 8 to 10, belonging to a developmental stage in which articulatory rehearsal can spontaneously be used for memorization, with that of young adults aged 18 to 30, in whom rehearsal abilities are fully developed. Participants completed a complex span task with short semantically related word lists. The lists were tailored to children's knowledge to eliminate potential differences in lexical access between children and adults. Additionally, the number of memory words was adjusted to individual capacities of each participant. Each word was presented in the auditory modality, followed by a retention interval of a few seconds during which rehearsal opportunities were manipulated. During the retention intervals, participants performed a concurrent visuospatial task designed to be high attention demanding to capture a large part of attentional resources and force them to prioritize articulatory rehearsal for word maintenance. This concurrent task was performed either silently, allowing opportunities for rehearsal, or under articulatory suppression, reducing opportunities to use this mechanism.

The second aim of the present experiment was to measure verbatim and gist retrieval in recall tests with the dual-retrieval model. The present study is pioneering in its application of the dual-retrieval model to a WM task in children and provides a unique examination of the role of articulatory rehearsal in verbatim and gist retrieval processes in children as compared to adults. The dual-retrieval model is an MPT model developed by Brainerd et al. (2009) that allows the dissociation and measurement of the contributions of verbatim and gist retrieval processes to recall performance. It has been empirically validated in several previous studies using LTM tasks in younger and older adults as well as in children (e.g., Brainerd et al., 2009; Brainerd et al., 2012; Gomes et al., 2014) and WM tasks in younger adults (Rosselet-Jordan et al., 2025). Brainerd et al. (2009) showed that if the design includes at least three separate recall tests, a measurement model with six retrieval parameters can fit to the data. Thus, in the present experiment, after the final retention interval, participants completed an immediate recall test, followed by two delayed recall tests, with a distractor task introduced between each recall test. The dual-retrieval model implements the distinction between a recollective process based on direct access of item's verbatim traces (D) and a reconstruction process that uses gist traces (R). Verbatim retrieval supports correct recall by reinstating the item's prior presentation in consciousness, allowing participants to simply read out the item as it flashes in the mind eyes. Reconstruction uses semantic information from gist traces as search cues to retrieve candidate items from memory, which can then be recalled. Reconstruction can produce correct recall as well as incorrect recall, i.e., it can produce false recall of unpresented items whose meanings are similar to those of the studied items. To minimize incorrect recall, reconstructed items are subjected to a familiarity judgment (J) before recall and only those that exceed a certain familiarity threshold are output. In the version of the model that is used in the present experiment, there were three familiarity judgments, one for each recall test ($J_1$, $J_2$ and $J_3$). Finally, the sixth parameter was a forgetting parameter (F) which measures the probability of forgetting how to retrieve verbatim traces after the first recall test. The specific version of the model is described in greater detail in the analyses section below.

As previous studies (Abadie et al., 2024) have shown, we predicted that reducing the opportunities to rehearse memory words would reduce correct recall and increase semantic recall errors in adults in the immediate test. Furthermore, we predicted that children would have a lower rate of correct recall and exhibit fewer semantic errors than adults in the immediate test (Abadie & Rousselle, 2023). Since some children begin to use rehearsal from the age of 5 (Elliott et al., 2021), articulatory suppression should also reduce correct recall and increase semantic errors in the immediate test among 8- to 10-year-olds in the present study. The two delayed tests were only included to apply the dual-retrieval model, and we did not have any predictions regarding the effect of rehearsal and age on recall performance in delayed tests.

Regarding the parameters of the dual-retrieval model, we predicted that limiting rehearsal opportunities should decrease direct access to verbatim traces of items in adults as it was shown in previous studies using recognition tests (Abadie & Campos, 2019). If 8-10-year-old children already used rehearsal, articulatory suppression should also reduce direct access to verbatim traces. Finally, as the ability to retrieve verbatim traces of items and to reconstruct information from gist traces should increase with development during childhood (Brainerd et al., 2008), we expected direct access and reconstruction parameters to be lower in children than in adults.

## Method

### Transparency and Openness

Materials, deidentified data and analysis script are available at Open Science Framework and can be accessed at https://osf.io/b4c5z/overview?view_only=29f43c014e80458c90f49a53b160f8e2. The study has been preregistered on the Aspredicted website and is available at https://aspredicted.org/zkhr-4wbw.pdf. It was approved by a national committee for the protection of personal data (2024-A01994-43). Participation was voluntary for young adults and children. All young adults and holders of parental responsibility for children gave written informed consent prior to participation.

### Participants

Thirty 18-30-year-old young adults were recruited from Aix-Marseille University and 31 8-10-year-old children were recruited from two French elementary schools. This study is the first to examine the effect of varying articulatory rehearsal opportunities on a group of 8-10-year-olds and young adults in a complex span task with three recall tests. Therefore, we decided to recruit at least 30
participants per age group, which is common in psychological studies. The data of one adult participant were excluded due to non-compliance with the concurrent task instructions. The final sample consisted of 29 young adults ($M_{age} = 20.5$ years; $SD = 2.7$; range = 18–29; 23 females, 6 males) and 31 children ($M_{age} = 8.8$ years; $SD = 0.5$; range = 8–10; 12 females, 19 males). All participants were native French speakers and had no learning disabilities. Socio-economic information was not formally collected. All participants were of European origin and came from a range of socio-economic backgrounds.

## Materials

### Word lists

We constructed 60 semantically related word lists by selecting 60 themes from various studies that employed semantically related word set (Bonin et al., 2013; Roediger & McDermott, 1995; Rousselle et al., 2023). Each list consisted of eight words (e.g., rest, wake, tired, snore, etc.) strongly associated with a non-presented theme word (e.g., sleep). The eight words on each list have been selected based on three criteria. First, the number of syllables in each word was $2 \pm 1$. Second, the average frequency of occurrence of the words in French scholar manuals was between 45.8 and 61.5 ($M = 52.9$, $SD = 2.8$) (Lété et al., 2004). Finally, each word was controlled for age of acquisition using an 8-year-old criterion when the data was available in French databases (Ferrand et al., 2008). The word lists used in the experiment were selected following a pilot study in which half of the lists were presented to 30 adults ($M_{age} = 19.9$ years; $SD = 2.9$) and 20 children ($M_{age} = 8.2$; $SD = 0.4$) and the other half to another group of 30 adults ($M_{age} = 19.9$ years; $SD = 2.3$) and 17 children ($M_{age} = 8.2$; $SD = 0.4$). For each list, participants were required to assess the degree of semantic relatedness between the eight words using a rating scale from 1 (weakly semantically related) to 7 (strongly semantically related). The 16 lists with the highest semantic relatedness scores were selected ($M = 6.7$, $SD = 0.65$). The average word frequency between each word list did not differ significantly, $p = .59$, $BF_{10} = 0.47$. No word was presented more than once and the words on the different lists were not semantically related. Finally, all words were recorded orally by a female voice using VoiceBooking software (https://www.voicebooking.com/en/free-voice-over-generator).

### Concurrent task

We adapted the spatial fit task from the study by Vergauwe et al. (2009). A set of 64 spatial fit items was developed for the current study. Each spatial fit item consisted of a central black horizontal line and two laterals black squares. The horizontal line was displayed in the center of the screen, with length ranging from 15 mm to 115 mm. The two squares were positioned on the same horizontal plane as each other, each with a fixed length of 6 mm. For half of the items, the squares were positioned above the horizontal line, and for the other half, below it. For each position, above or below the horizontal line, the distance between the two squares varied in two ways: for half of the items, the distance was 3 mm longer than the line, and for the other half, 3 mm shorter. Thus, the horizontal line could fit between the squares or could not fit between them. In this task, participants had to judge as quickly and accurately as possible whether the horizontal line could fit between two squares by pressing the “L” key (marked with a green sticker) for “yes” and the “S” key (marked with a red sticker) for “no”.

### Procedure

The experiment was conducted in a quiet room at the school for children and in a room on the university campus dedicated to behavioral experiments for adults. The experimenter remained in the room throughout the entire experimental procedure. The experiment was presented on a computer using OpenSesame software Version 3.7.6 (Mathôt et al., 2012). All data were collected and stored anonymously on a laboratory computer. The experiment consisted of two phases: an initial titration phase to determine the maximal number of items that could be correctly remembered for the memory task and processed for the spatial fit task, followed by a second phase in which participants performed the main experiment. The experimental phase involved a complex span task in which participants had to maintain memory words while performing the spatial fit task as a concurrent task.

### Titration phase

**Spatial Fit Task.** We adapted the staircase procedure from Belletier et al. (2021) to assess the maximum number of spatial fit items that each participant could process within a given time. A detailed description of the staircase procedure is available on the OSF page. Each trial of the task lasted 7065 ms for the children and 3690 ms for the adults. Participants completed series of three trials, starting the initial series with three spatial fit items per trial. Across a series, if participants achieved an average accuracy of 80 %, an additional item was added to the next series, otherwise one item was removed. This procedure was repeated for six series and if the last series represented the highest level achieved, additional series were presented until participants failed to reach the 80 % criterion.

**Memory Task.** We used a staircase procedure similar to that employed for the spatial task to determine the maximum number of words that each participant could correctly recall immediately. A detailed description of the procedure used is available on the OSF page. On each trial, unrelated words were presented sequentially in the auditory modality within an 850-ms presentation window, followed by a 300-ms black fixation cross. Participants were instructed to remember all the studied words and recall them aloud, in any order, when the word “recall” appeared on the screen. They completed a series of three trials with the initial series starting with four words per trial for adults and three words per trial for children. A trial was considered correct when all the studied words were recalled and incorrect when at least one word was missing. In a series, if participants achieved an average performance of 75 %, an additional word was added to the next series, otherwise one word was removed. The titration procedure continued until participants successfully completed two series with a number of words per trial equal to, or exceeding, four words for adults and three words for children. Once
this stopping criterion was reached, if the last series represented the highest number of words correctly recalled, additional series were presented until participants failed to reach the 75 % criterion.

## Experimental phase

Participants completed a complex span task, in which they had to maintain a list of words in memory while completing the concurrent spatial fit task. Fig. 1 illustrates one trial of the task. Each trial began with a 100 ms ISI before the presentation of the first memory word from a list randomly selected from the set of 16 semantically related lists. The number of memory words was different for each participant and corresponded to the maximum number of words they could correctly recall during the titration phase (i.e., ranging from four to six words for adults and three to four words for children). Following the presentation of each word, participants performed the spatial fit task for 7065 ms for children and 3690 ms for young adults, as in the titration phase. The number of spatial fit items presented during this time interval differed for each participant and corresponded to the maximum number of items they had been able to process correctly during the titration phase minus 1. This adjustment accounted for the increased difficulty of performing the spatial fit task concurrently with the memory task. However, the spatial fit task remained sufficiently attentionally demanding to hinder the use of attentional mechanisms for word maintenance. At the end of each trial, the word “recall” appeared at the center of the screen, prompting participants to recall the words studied aloud, in any order, and as quickly as possible. If participants forgot a word, they were instructed to say “omit” instead. The immediate recall test was followed by two delayed recall tests. Between each recall test, participants performed a distractor task, which is a backward counting task for 1000 ms counting by twos for adults and by ones for children. This task interfered with further maintenance of memory words in WM. It was initiated by the experimenter after the same number of words as those studied had been recalled and started with the presentation of a randomly selected number (ranging from 40 to 100 for children or 40 to 250 for adults) in the center of the screen.

The experimental phase was divided into two sessions, counterbalanced across participants within the same age group. Each session included eight trials of the complex span task, completed under one of two experimental conditions. In the articulatory suppression condition, children repeated aloud the syllables “ba-bi”, while adults repeated aloud the syllables “ba-bi-boo” throughout each concurrent task interval. This adjustment was implemented to avoid cognitive overload in children, ensuring that concurrent articulation required minimal attentional resources. The concurrent articulation prevented participants from repeating the memory words mentally or aloud (e.g., Murray, 1968). In the no articulatory suppression condition, participants remained silent while performing the spatial fit task, allowing them to use articulatory rehearsal to maintain the memory words. Between the presentation of each word, the spatial fit task was initiated by the presentation of a 250 ms green square on the screen and continued until a 250 ms red square appeared after the last item (Fig. 1). This procedure was implemented to facilitate the onset and offset of concurrent articulation and to ensure that participants encoded the subsequent word accurately in the articulatory suppression condition. Each session began with a training phase consisting of four practices trials to familiarize participants with the experimental condition. At the end of the experiment, all the participants were thanked and debriefed.

## Analyses

### ANOVAs on concurrent task and recall accuracy

Mixed measures ANOVAs were conducted on concurrent task accuracy and recall accuracy with age group (children vs adults) as a between-subject factor, articulatory suppression (articulatory suppression vs no articulatory suppression) and time of test (immediate test vs delayed test 1 vs delayed test 2) as within-subject factors, using JASP version 0.19.3 (JASP Team, 2024). When the assumption of sphericity was violated, a Greenhouse-Geisser correction was systematically applied. Partial eta squared values, and 90 % confidence intervals were obtained using an online effect size calculator at https://effect-size-calculator.herokuapp.com. For the sake of

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 1.** Illustration of an experimental trial. Note. C is for children and A is for adults. For each participant, the number of memory words corresponded to the maximum number determined during the titration phase. The concurrent task was performed either silently or with articulatory suppression. In the articulatory suppression condition, participants began the concurrent articulation upon the appearance of a green square and continued until the red square appeared. To prevent the use of attentional mechanisms, the concurrent task was highly demanding. It required processing one fewer item than the maximum established in the titration phase. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)</figcaption></figure>
brevity, the analyses on concurrent task accuracy are reported on the OSF page.

## Multinomial processing Tree analyses

To get a deeper insight into the retrieval processes underlying recall responses and to examine the effect of rehearsal opportunities and age on these processes, we complemented the ANOVAs with MPT analyses using the dual-retrieval model of recall (Brainerd et al., 2009). We used a version of the model that had already been applied to similar paradigms, consisting of a single study phase followed by three consecutive tests (Chang & Brainerd, 2023).

## Overview of the MPT model

A detailed description of the model is available on the OSF page. Six parameters were estimated. The direct access parameter (D) refers to the probability that the verbatim trace of a studied item is directly accessed on a recall test. The forgetting parameter (F) represents the probability that direct access to the verbatim trace of a studied item is available on the first recall test but not on subsequent recall tests due to forgetting. The reconstruction parameter (R) refers to the probability that a studied item is reconstructed on a recall test when its verbatim trace is not directly accessed. Finally, the familiarity judgment parameters (J) represent the probability that a reconstructed item is judged to be familiar enough to be output. $J_1$, $J_2$, and $J_3$ represent the familiarity judgment parameters for tests 1, 2, and 3, respectively.

## Model fit

The dual-retrieval model parameters were estimated using a hierarchical Bayesian estimation technique with latent-trait prior specifications, with TreeBUGS package for R (Heck et al., 2018; R Core Team, 2024). We retained the program default priors. Model fit was assessed with $T_1$ and $T_2$ statistics (Klauer, 2010). A posterior-predictive p-value (PPP) was obtained for each statistic. PPP values larger than .05 reflect satisfactory model fit (Schmidt et al., 2025). The model fit was satisfactory, with PPP ≥ .306 for all $T_1$ and $T_2$ statistics.

## Results

### Recall accuracy

Two independent and trained raters classified the responses to the recall tests. First, when a participant recalled a studied word, it was considered a correct response. Then, if a participant realized they had omitted a word and said so, this was classified as an omission. All other types of responses were categorized as incorrect. When the recalled word was semantically related to the theme or two or more words from the studied list, it was classified as a semantic error (i.e., false memory). When the recalled word was phonologically similar to one of the words of the studied list, it was classified as a phonological error. When the recalled word was studied in a previous list, it was defined as an intrusion. Finally, the category “other error” included recalled words that were neither semantically nor phonologically related to those in the studied list, nor originated from another list. Interrater agreement was 95.8% before discussion among the raters and full interrater agreement was achieved after discussion.

### Correct recall

Table 1 shows the percentage of correct and incorrect recall as a function of articulatory suppression condition, time of test and age. The ANOVA revealed significant main effects of age, $F(1, 58) = 51.98, p < .001, \eta_p^2 = .47, 90\% CI [.31,.58]$ and articulatory suppression, $F(1, 58) = 117.69, p < .001, \eta_p^2 = .67, 90\% CI [.55,.74]$. As predicted, correct recall performance was higher in adults than in children and in the no articulatory suppression condition than in the articulatory suppression condition. There was also a main effect of

**Table 1**

Mean percentage of correct recall, semantic and non-semantic errors in the immediate test and the delayed tests 1 and 2 as a function of age group and articulatory suppression.

<table><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Recall accuracy</th><th colspan="2">Children</th><th colspan="2">Adults</th></tr><tr><th>No suppression</th><th>Suppression</th><th>No suppression</th><th>Suppression</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Correct recall</td><td>89.1 (8)</td><td>67.1 (10.6)</td><td>96.5 (4)</td><td>81.1 (7.7)</td></tr><tr><td>Semantic errors</td><td>1.9 (2.7)</td><td>4.4 (3.9)</td><td>0.4 (1.2)</td><td>4.5 (5.1)</td></tr><tr><td>Non semantic errors</td><td>1.8 (3.4)</td><td>3.2 (5.7)</td><td>0.4 (1.2)</td><td>0.7 (1.4)</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;">Delayed test 1</td></tr><tr><td>Correct recall</td><td>74 (13.3)</td><td>61.5 (11.6)</td><td>89.9 (5.9)</td><td>77.2 (9.2)</td></tr><tr><td>Semantic errors</td><td>4.9 (4.9)</td><td>4.7 (4.5)</td><td>1.3 (2.5)</td><td>6.4 (5.1)</td></tr><tr><td>Non semantic errors</td><td>1.6 (2.9)</td><td>3.4 (5.8)</td><td>0.6 (1.3)</td><td>0.6 (1.3)</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;">Delayed test 2</td></tr><tr><td>Correct recall</td><td>74.6 (13.1)</td><td>61.7 (11.6)</td><td>88.5 (6.9)</td><td>76.9 (8.5)</td></tr><tr><td>Semantic errors</td><td>5.1 (5.1)</td><td>5.7 (4.7)</td><td>1.3 (2.6)</td><td>6.9 (5.3)</td></tr><tr><td>Non semantic errors</td><td>1.6 (2.5)</td><td>3.3 (5.8)</td><td>0.8 (1.3)</td><td>0.6 (1.3)</td></tr></tbody></table>

Note. Standard deviations are in brackets.
time of test, $F(1.16, 67.1) = 104.97, p < .001, \eta_p^2 = .64, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.52,.71]$. Post-hoc comparisons revealed a decrease in correct recall performance between the immediate test and the delayed tests 1, $t(116) = 12.37, p_{\text{Holm}} < .001, d = 0.81, 95 \% \text{ CI } [0.56, 1.05]$ and 2, $t(116) = 12.72, p_{\text{Holm}} < .001, d = 0.83, 95 \% \text{ CI } [0.58, 1.08]$, but there was no significant difference between delayed tests 1 and 2, $t(116) = 0.36, p_{\text{Holm}} = .722, d = 0.02, 95 \% \text{ CI } [-0.14, 0.18]$.

Furthermore, there was no significant interaction between articulatory suppression and age, $F(1, 58) = 0.93, p = .339, \eta_p^2 = .02, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.00,.10]$, suggesting that both children and adults benefit from the use of articulatory rehearsal for correct recall. However, there were significant interactions between articulatory suppression and time of test, $F(1.49, 86.41) = 26.39, p < .001, \eta_p^2 = .31, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.18,.42]$ and between time of test and age, $F(1.16, 67.10) = 8.96, p = .003, \eta_p^2 = .13, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.03,.26]$. Moreover, the analysis provided evidence for an interaction between articulatory suppression, time of test and age, $F(1.49, 86.41) = 6.64, p = .005, \eta_p^2 = .10, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.02,.20]$. To decompose this interaction, we conducted two separate mixed measures ANOVAs with age group and articulatory suppression as factors, one for the immediate test and one for the delayed tests. As there was no significant difference between the percentage of correct recall in delayed tests 1 and 2, we pooled the data from these two tests for subsequent analyses.

In the immediate test, the analysis showed significant main effects of articulatory suppression, $F(1, 58) = 186.85, p < .001, \eta_p^2 = .76, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.67,.82]$, and age, $F(1, 58) = 47.49, p < .001, \eta_p^2 = .45, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.29,.56]$, as well as a significant interaction between the two variables, $F(1, 58) = 5.96, p = .018, \eta_p^2 = .09, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.01,.22]$. Simple effects analyses revealed a significant effect of age in the articulatory suppression condition, $F(1, 58) = 40.86, p < .001, \eta_p^2 = .41, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.25,.53]$, which appeared to be larger than in the no articulatory suppression condition, $F(1, 58) = 11.25, p = .001, \eta_p^2 = .16, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.04,.30]$. This result suggests that although adults have better recall performance than children when given opportunities to use articulatory rehearsal, articulatory suppression appears to be more detrimental for children than adults in the immediate test.

In contrast, in the delayed test, there were significant main effects of articulatory suppression, $F(1, 58) = 72.21, p < .001, \eta_p^2 = .55, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.40,.65]$ and age, $F(1, 58) = 46.66, p < .001, \eta_p^2 = .45, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.28,.56]$, but the interaction between the two variables was not significant, $F(1, 58) = 0.03, p = .855, \eta_p^2 = .00, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.00,.04]$. Articulatory suppression reduced correct recall performance for both children and adults on the delayed test.

To ensure that the articulatory suppression effect obtained in the delayed test was not simply due to a test-retest effect, given that each word list was tested three times, we calculated a delayed recall score conditioned on immediate recall. The results reported on the OSF page showed the same articulatory suppression effect on this score.

## Incorrect recall

The mean percentage of semantic and non-semantic errors (i.e., phonological errors, intrusions and other errors) in the immediate test and the delayed tests 1 and 2 as a function of articulatory suppression and age group are shown in Table 1.

**Semantic errors.** As expected, semantic errors increased in the articulatory suppression condition compared to the no articulatory suppression condition, $F(1, 58) = 23.93, p < .001, \eta_p^2 = .29, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.14,.43]$. This result is consistent with previous studies showing an increase in semantic errors when the articulatory rehearsal opportunities were reduced (e.g., Abadie et al., 2024). The analysis also showed a significant main effect of time of test, $F(1.55, 89.84) = 27.88, p < .001, \eta_p^2 = .32, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.19,.43]$. Post-hoc comparisons showed that semantic errors increased between the immediate test and delayed test 1, $t(116) = -5.46, p_{\text{Holm}} < .001, d = 0.35, 95 \% \text{ CI } [0.18, 0.53]$, and delayed test 2, $t(116) = -7.14, p_{\text{Holm}} < .001, d = 0.46, 95 \% \text{ CI } [0.27, 0.66]$, but no significant increase was found between delayed test 1 and 2, $t(116) = 1.69, p_{\text{Holm}} = .09, d = 0.11, 95 \% \text{ CI } [0.05, 0.27]$. There was no significant main effect of age on semantic errors, $F(1, 58) = 1.59, p = .212, \eta_p^2 = .03, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.00,.12]$.

Furthermore, there was a significant interaction between articulatory suppression, age and time of test, $F(2, 116) = 8.22, p < .001, \eta_p^2 = .12, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.038,.21]$. To decompose this interaction, two mixed measures ANOVAs were conducted on the immediate test and the delayed tests separately, with age and articulatory suppression as factors. There was no significant difference between the percentage of semantic errors in delayed test 1 and 2, therefore we pooled the data from these two tests for subsequent analyses.

In the immediate test, the analysis showed a significant main effect of articulatory suppression, $F(1, 58) = 28.14, p < .001, \eta_p^2 = .33, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.16,.45]$. However, the interaction between articulatory suppression and age was not significant, $F(1, 58) = 1.77, p = .188, \eta_p^2 = .03, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.11,.40]$. Thus, articulatory rehearsal opportunities seem to be beneficial for both age groups to reduce semantic errors in the immediate test.

In contrast, in the delayed test, the analysis revealed a significant main effect of articulatory suppression, $F(1, 58) = 17.79, p < .001, \eta_p^2 = .23, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.09,.37]$, and a significant interaction between the articulatory suppression and age, $F(1, 58) = 15.30, p < .001, \eta_p^2 = .21, 90 \% \text{ CI } [.071,.35]$. Simple effect analyses showed a significant effect of articulatory suppression for adults, $F(1, 58) = 31.97, p < .001$.

## Table 2

<table><caption>Parameter estimates of the dual-retrieval model as a function of age group and articulatory suppression.</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Parameter</th><th colspan="2">Children</th><th colspan="2">Adults</th></tr><tr><th>No suppression</th><th>Suppression</th><th>No suppression</th><th>Suppression</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>D</td><td>.72 (.57,.81)</td><td>.54 (.38,.63)</td><td>.87 (.67,.93)</td><td>.71 (.60,.77)</td></tr><tr><td>R</td><td>.72 (.56,.85)</td><td>.31 (.17,.51)</td><td>.77 (.55,.94)</td><td>.40 (.27,.58)</td></tr><tr><td>F</td><td>.20 (.14,.28)</td><td>.12 (.07,.18)</td><td>.06 (.04,.10)</td><td>.06 (.04,.08)</td></tr><tr><td>J<sub>1</sub></td><td>.84 (.71,.93)</td><td>.77 (.50,.92)</td><td>.93 (.83,.99)</td><td>.81 (.65,.93)</td></tr><tr><td>J<sub>2</sub></td><td>.81 (.64,.93)</td><td>.86 (.72,.95)</td><td>.88 (.64,.99)</td><td>.86 (.66,.96)</td></tr><tr><td>J<sub>3</sub></td><td>.88 (.72,.98)</td><td>.90 (.76,.98)</td><td>.69 (.39,.93)</td><td>.82 (.63,.94)</td></tr></tbody></table>

Note. Parameter estimates are group-level means, and 95% Bayesian credible intervals are in brackets.
< .001, $\eta_p^2$ = .35, 90% CI [.19,.48], but not for children, F(1, 58) = 0.05, p = .826, $\eta_p^2$ = .00, 90% CI [.00,.04]. Rehearsal opportunities continue to be beneficial in reducing semantic errors on the delayed test for adults, but not for children.

**Non-semantic errors.** We averaged the number of phonological errors, intrusions and other errors and examined the effect of age, time of test and articulatory suppression on these non-semantic errors. The analysis revealed a significant main effect of age only, F(1, 58) = 7.29, p = .009, $\eta_p^2$ = .11, 90% CI [.02,.24]. Children made more non-semantic errors than adults. There were no other significant effects ($p_s$ > .106).

## MPT results

The parameter estimates of the dual-retrieval model are shown in Table 2. In addition, a credibility interval of the difference between a) adults and children, b) no articulatory suppression and articulatory suppression conditions and c) adults and children in the no articulatory suppression and d) adults and children in the articulatory suppression conditions, was computed for each parameter. The differences are shown in Table 3. Parameters for which the 95% credible interval of the difference estimate overlapped with 0 do not meaningfully differ (Smith & Batchelder, 2010). Several meaningful differences emerged. First, as predicted, articulatory suppression condition reduced direct access (D) compared to the no articulatory suppression condition. The reconstruction (R) parameter was also reduced by articulatory suppression. Interestingly, as expected, the direct access (D) parameter was higher in adults than in children but only in the articulatory suppression condition. Finally, the forgetting parameter (F) was higher in children than in adults in both articulatory suppression and no articulatory suppression condition.

## General discussion

The present study implemented the dual-retrieval model for the first time on a WM task with three successive recall tests in children, yielding four noteworthy and novel findings. Firstly, it demonstrated the pivotal function of articulatory rehearsal in supporting correct recall of verbal information not only in the immediate test but also in the two delayed tests in children aged from 8 to 10 years and young adults. Secondly, the present study is the first to show that rehearsal reduces semantic errors on immediate tests in children, as previously shown for adults (e.g., Abadie et al., 2024). Furthermore, it replicates the effect of rehearsal on immediate test semantic errors in adults and shows that rehearsal also reduces semantic errors in adults on the two delayed tests. Thirdly, we conducted the initial examination of the retrieval processes underlying the effect of rehearsal on correct and incorrect recall in adults and children. Results showed that rehearsal increased both direct access to verbatim traces of studied items and reconstruction of partial memories from gist traces of studied items in children and young adults. Finally, the present study showed that reducing the opportunities of using rehearsal was more detrimental in terms of correct recall and direct access to the verbatim traces for children than for young adults. This last result suggests that adults may rely on mechanisms other than rehearsal more frequently and/or effectively than young children do. In the following, we discuss the effect of articulatory rehearsal on correct recall and semantic errors in children and adults. Then, we examine its influence on the processes underlying verbatim and gist retrieval, again comparing children and adults.

### Articulatory rehearsal increases correct recall in children and adults

The present experiment demonstrated the importance of rehearsal for correct recall in both children and young adults. Reducing the opportunities to rehearse memory words by having participants utter irrelevant syllables repeatedly during the retention interval decreased correct recall in all the tests for both age groups. This is an important finding that contradicts previous studies which found no causal link between rehearsal and correct serial recall (Souza & Oberauer, 2018). In those studies, participants had to maintain lists of six unrelated words through rehearsal. However, Barrouillet et al. (2021) demonstrated that six words exceed the rehearsal capacity of most individuals. In the present study, a titration procedure was used to adjust the number of words to be maintained through rehearsal according to each participant's capacity. Thus, the number of words each participant was likely to maintain through rehearsal did not exceed the capacity of the mechanism, and rehearsal improved correct recall performance. In accordance with the findings of the present study, Morey et al. (2025) reported that children between the ages of 5 and 10 rely on rehearsal more frequently and that the rehearsal strategy is more effective for lists that correspond to their maximum memory span capacity. Overall, as Morey

<caption>**Table 3**</caption>

Difference scores between adults and children, between no articulatory suppression and articulatory suppression conditions, between adults and children in the no articulatory suppression and in the articulatory suppression conditions.

<table><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Parameter</th><th colspan="2">No suppression</th><th colspan="2">Suppression</th></tr><tr><th>Adults - children</th><th>Suppression - suppression</th><th>Adults - children</th><th>Adults - children</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>D</td><td>.15 (-.05,.33)</td><td><strong>.16 (.03,.28)</strong></td><td>.15 (-.07,.32)</td><td><strong>.17 (.03,.34)</strong></td></tr><tr><td>R</td><td>.09 (-.14,.33)</td><td><strong>.39 (.22,.55)</strong></td><td>.05 (-.20,.28)</td><td>.09 (-.15,.31)</td></tr><tr><td>F</td><td><strong>-.10 (-.18, -.05)</strong></td><td>.04 (-.00,.08)</td><td><strong>-.14 (-.23, -.06)</strong></td><td><strong>-.06 (-.13, -.01)</strong></td></tr><tr><td>J<sub>1</sub></td><td>.07 (-.05,.20)</td><td>.09 (-.03,.21)</td><td>.10 (-.04,.24)</td><td>.04 (-.18,.34)</td></tr><tr><td>J<sub>2</sub></td><td>.04 (-.08,.16)</td><td>-.00 (-.13,.11)</td><td>.07 (-.20,.28)</td><td>-.01 (-.21,.17)</td></tr><tr><td>J<sub>3</sub></td><td>-.07 (-.21,.06)</td><td>-.04 (-.19,.09)</td><td>-.19 (-.52,.10)</td><td>-.08 (-.29,.11)</td></tr></tbody></table>

Note. 95% credible intervals are in brackets. Bolded difference scores excluded 0 from the 95% credible interval.
et al. (2025) proposed, these findings suggest that rehearsal efficacy may be contingent on whether the amount of to-be-remembered information falls within the upper limit of each individual's memory span capacity.

Furthermore, although adults had a higher correct recall rate, children aged 8–10 benefited from rehearsal maintenance opportunities. This finding aligns with previous studies indicating that children as young as 5 years old use the articulatory rehearsal mechanism, albeit less effectively than adults (Elliott et al., 2021). In the immediate test, the effect of age on correct recall decreased when participants had more rehearsal opportunities. The performance difference between children and adults decreased from 14% in the articulatory suppression condition to 7% in the no suppression condition. Thus, the use of rehearsal appeared to reduce the performance gap between children and adults in the immediate test. Additionally, the greater difference in performance between children and adults when rehearsal was impeded suggests that adults can mobilize other maintenance mechanisms, such as attentional mechanisms for example, which may be less developed in children. Rehearsal is generally the preferred strategy for maintaining verbal material. Therefore, it is also possible that switching strategies when rehearsal was impeded in the articulatory suppression condition was more difficult for children because it requires metacognitive abilities that improve with age (Camos et al., 2011).

Although correct recall performance was better in the immediate test than in the delayed tests, articulatory rehearsal still provided a benefit compared to the articulatory suppression condition in the delayed tests. The beneficial effect of rehearsal on correct recall remained significant even when the conditionalized delayed recall score was used, suggesting that this effect cannot be attributed solely to test-retest, but that there was a beneficial effect of rehearsal in addition to that of recall. However, these findings contradict those of previous studies indicating that rehearsing items in WM has only a short-term effect on memory retention (e.g., Camos & Portrat, 2015). This apparent discrepancy may be due to different methodological approaches. The present study employed a trial-by-trial procedure to examine delayed recall. Unlike previous studies (e.g., Abadie et al., 2024; Camos & Portrat, 2015), the delayed tests were administered just a few seconds after the immediate test, rather than at the end of a series of trials. In previous studies, delayed recall tests differed from immediate recall tests in two ways: the time interval between item presentation and recall is longer, and the number of items to be recalled is larger. The trial-by-trial procedure allowed us to evaluate the effect of time interval between item presentation and recall by comparing immediate and delayed recall of the same number of items. This new method may have reduced the potential inter-list interference effect that could have masked the benefit of articulatory rehearsal on long-term retention in previous studies. As proposed by Ward (2024), one possible explanation for the beneficial effect of rehearsal on long-term retention in adults and children is that rehearsing an item increases the number and variety of associated contexts, generating more retrieval routes and promoting both immediate and delayed recall, provided there is little interference between the two.

## Articulatory rehearsal reduces false memory in children and adults

Surprisingly, contrary to what is often reported in the episodic memory literature (Brainerd et al., 2008), adults did not make more semantic errors (i.e., false memories) than children. The absence of an age effect may be due to the low rate of semantic errors, which ranged from 0% to 7% across the different tests and conditions. Furthermore, this finding is consistent with studies indicating that developmental differences in false memories diminish when semantically related lists are tailored to children's knowledge (e.g., Carneiro et al., 2007). In the present study, adapting the experimental lists for children may have facilitated gist extraction and promoted activation of semantically related words, leading children to generate as many false memories as adults on the immediate test.

Although there were few semantic errors, they were influenced by the rehearsal opportunity manipulation. Both children and adults made fewer semantic errors in the immediate test when they had the opportunity to rehearse (approximately 1% versus 4.5% in the articulatory suppression condition). This result is in line with previous studies indicating that WM maintenance moderates the occurrence of false memories in immediate recall tests for both adults (Abadie et al., 2024) and children (Rousselle et al., 2025). Additionally, this result aligns with studies in adults showing that rehearsal specifically reduces semantic errors in immediate recall tests (Abadie et al., 2024). This study provides the first evidence that the rehearsal mechanism is sufficiently developed in 8- to 10-year-old children to reduce the occurrence of false memories in immediate tests. Furthermore, adults still made fewer semantic errors during the delayed tests when articulatory rehearsal could be used (1% versus 6.5% in the articulatory suppression condition). This was not the case in previous studies, which showed no effect of rehearsal in delayed tests (e.g., Abadie et al., 2024). As with correct recall, this can be explained by the limitations of the previous procedure used for delayed tests which could have induced interference that masked the effect of rehearsal. In contrast, semantic errors did not vary according to rehearsal opportunities in delayed tests in children (approximately 5% in both conditions). This effect was due to an increase in semantic errors between the immediate and the delayed tests in the condition in which they had the opportunity to rehearse. It appears that rehearsal, which is beneficial for correct recall and reduction of semantic errors in immediate and delayed tests in adults, is beneficial for correct recall in both tests but only in immediate tests for semantic errors in children. Thus, children between the ages of 8 and 10 seem to use rehearsal, but less effectively than adults. This may explain why children have lower correct recall rates than adults and why rehearsal does not help them to limit the occurrence of semantic errors in the delayed test. As discussed in the following section, these results suggest that memory traces maintained through articulatory rehearsal differ between adults and children.

## Retrieval processes underlying the effect of rehearsal on correct and incorrect recall in children and adults

The dual-retrieval model perfectly fits the WM task data of adults, supporting the results of a recent study (Rosselet-Jordan et al., 2025). The present study is the first to show that the dual-retrieval model also fits children's WM data. These results revealed that recollective and non-recollective processes are involved in WM retrieval in adults and children (see Supplement 5 on the OSF page for
details on retrieval states).

Both direct access to verbatim traces and reconstruction based on gist traces increase when there were opportunities to use
rehearsal in both children and adults. Other studies have consistently shown that rehearsal promotes verbatim retrieval in adults (e.g.,
Abadie & Camos, 2019). However, these studies found no increase in gist retrieval due to rehearsal. This difference between the studies
may be related to the type of test: previous studies have used recognition tests, which may be less sensitive to the effects of rehearsal
than recall tests (Uittenhove et al., 2019). However, it should be noted that the reconstruction parameter (R) refers to the probability
that a studied item is reconstructed on a recall test when its verbatim trace is not directly accessed. Therefore, the proportion of correct
recall based on reconstruction corresponds to the proportion of recall not based on direct access, multiplied by the probability of
reconstruction (i.e., (1 - D) × R). Considering the proportion of recall based on reconstruction in adults revealed that it did not vary
according to rehearsal opportunities (10 % in the no-suppression condition versus 12 % in the suppression condition), whereas the
proportion of correct recall based on direct access increased when rehearsal could be used (87 % versus 71 % in the suppression
condition). In children, however, the proportion of correct recall based on reconstruction was higher when rehearsal was not impeded
(20 %) than when it was (14 %), as for those based on direct access (72 % in the no-suppression condition versus 54 % in the sup-
pression condition). Thus, rehearsal appears to mainly promote correct recall based on direct access in adults and promote both direct
access and reconstruction in children. The increase in reconstruction through rehearsal in children could also account for the increase
in semantic errors on the delayed tests.

Finally, contrary to our predictions, direct access and reconstruction did not increase with age. However, the forgetting parameter
was higher in children than in adults. Additionally, direct access was higher in adults when articulatory rehearsal was impeded. This
accounts for adults' better recall performance in this condition. This result suggests that, when rehearsal was impeded, adults could
mobilize other maintenance mechanisms that allowed them to preserve direct access better than children and perform better on recall.

Conclusion

To conclude, the present study was the first to show that, although articulatory rehearsal remains less efficient than in adults,
children aged 8–10 benefit from it for correctly recalling lists of semantically related words in the short and long-term. Rehearsal also
reduced false memories in both age groups. Furthermore, the dual-retrieval model revealed that the benefit of rehearsal stems from
increased direct access to verbatim traces of items and reconstruction from gist traces. This benefit was more important for children,
who seem to rely primarily on rehearsal, than for adults, who can rely on other maintenance mechanisms when rehearsal was impeded.
These findings improve our understanding of how articulatory rehearsal maintains verbal information by revealing the type of memory
traces strengthened by rehearsal throughout development, from childhood to adulthood.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

**Léa Hami:** Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Visualization, Software, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization.
**Laurence Casini:** Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Project administration.
**Marlène Abadie:** Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration, Methodology, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the pilot centre for research in education Ampiric, funded by the France 2030 Investment Program, as part of the action "Territories of Educational Innovation" operated by the Caisse des Dépôts. We thank Jean-Baptiste Melmi for his help with programming the experiment and Laure Spieser for her assistance with the analysis scripts. We have no known conflict of interest to disclose. The manuscript has been posted on PsyArXiv at doi:10.31234/osf.io/mkcwa_v1.

Data availability

I have shared the link to my data in the manuscript

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