The development of working memory

Question 1

working memory

Answer 1

small amount of info that can be held in the mind and used in the execution of tasks

Question 2

LTM

Answer 2

vast amount of info saved over ones life

Question 3

History
John Locke(1690)
William James
Ebbinghaus

Answer 3

JL - distinguished between holding an idea in mind (contemplation) and memory
WJ - distinction between primary memory (items in consciousness) and secondary memory (items in storage)
E - one of the 1st to run experiments on memory. Memorise non-sense syllables (7 words= easy, 12 words = hard) Also tested effects of delays = ‘ebbinghaus forgetting curve

Question 4

Information processing approach to cognition

• Atkinson and Shiffrin
• Baddeley

Answer 4

1950s it was developed as alternative to behaviourism
central idea= humans are processing systems: we encode info, store and retrieve info and then produce a behavioural output (Action)
assumptions:
-info moves through a series of of stores
-info moves serially
-our cog system has a limited capacity
so, tasks and mental processes can be placed on a continuum relative to how much capacity they require (varies from automatic process to an effortful process)
-Atkinson and Shiffrin - multistore model (one of the first models of memory) - suggested memory has stores and works as a series of processes
-Baddeley model (look in notes)

Question 5

Working memory function?

cog developement - hardware and software

Answer 5

working memory is where info is held long enough for us to evaluate it, info is processed and transferred

• cog development involves changes in:
• hardware= capacity of memory and the speed info is processed in different systems
• software = such as childrens ability to use strategies

Question 6

What drives the development of working memory?

Answer 6

processing limitations (Brainerd, 1983) 
1)encoding limitations
2)retrieval limitations
3)Storage limitations
4)Metacognitive limitations
identifying which one of the 4 memory limitations a child is facing is not always easy

Question 7

1) Encoding limitations

Answer 7

1) encoding limitations
- failure to attend to the right info or failure to use an encoding strategy may cause crucial parts of task to be missed and not encoded
-attention - children have difficulty attending to most important part of task (selective attention)
study: Miller and Seier 1994 - young children told to remember location of animals but they will also look at task-irrelevant items (older children don’t)
-rehearsel (encoding strategy) - children under 10 can use rehearsel but in a less effective way than adults (Ornstein). With age kids can read/say words at faster rate and memory span increases (Hulme et al)
Bilingual studies show rehearsel helps encoding - Welsh kids have better memory for numbers in 2nd language (English) because numbers in english can be articulated more easily (Illis and Hennelley 1980)
0ther encoding strategies: organisation - under 10yrs don’t group items in categories that can be easily remembered
elaboration - kids and adults remember words more if there’s more meaning eg. association between 2 words BUT young children are unable to make own associations or if they can they’re less effective

Question 8

2) Retrieval limitations

Answer 8

kids may know retrieval strategy, but retrieve wrong info
Adults are proficient at using strategies to remember info, but 10 yr olds are able to name at least one retrieval strategy, 5 yr olds less capable

Question 9

3) Storage limitations

Answer 9

storage capacity increases with age(Dempster)
experience can affect storage ability eg. kids outperformed adults on chess position memory task due to practice (Chi)
Span tests only measure STM - more sensitive test of WM is when info is transferred as well as stored
-WM span is usually 2 items less than a childs STM span

Question 10

4) metacognitive limitations

Answer 10

if a child has poor metacognitive skills and limited experience they may not be aware of their own memory limitations and therefore not make an effort to encode properly
children overestimate their own memory
v. young children have too limited WM capacity so that use of strategies would impair rather than improve recall
children don’t realise how useful strategies are
children have less world knowledge that info can be integrated with to store it better
BUT more knowledge can sometimes lead to more errors such as:
-‘recalling’ details that have never been mentioned
-overgeneralising facts to situations in which they don’t apply
- adding facts that fit in with previous knowledge but did not apply to a specific situation
(Metacognition = awareness of your own thinking)

Question 11

Studies testing childrens abilities regarding memory:
Piaget and Inhelder (1951)
Brainerd

Answer 11

P and I - probability judgement task - 4 and 5 yr olds shown 10 tokens, 7 with 1 symbol, 3 with another
they had to predict which of these tokens would be pulled out of the bag
-children only guessed most common token in 1st trial
Brainerd tested why children performed badly after 1st trial:
1-storage limtiation? = children had forgotten frequency of tokens (but when kids shown second set of tokens to look at = still poor performance)
2- retrieval limitation? = kids received most recent info : last response guided their decision? (when child reminded of freq = successful)

Question 12

Individual differences in working memory

working memory has to support many other developing skills - what are these?

Answer 12

1) language - WM is important for vocab acquisition at around 3/4 yrs old and better WM in kids resulted in them learning labels for toys significantly faster than kids with poor WM
-WM is also important for language comprehension
2)academic skills - WM skills at age 4 predict reading and writing skills at age 6 (independent of socio-economic status)
-WM at age 5 is a better predictor of literacy and numeracy at age 11 than IQ
-WM at age 7/8 yrs old predict maths achievement, even after controlling for vocab
3)maths - visuo-spatial WM is most strongly correlated with maths performance in younger children
-verbal WM is most strongly correlated with maths performance in older children
-different WM used depending on format of maths problem
if maths q is presented horizontally eg. 33+23 = ?
= use verbal WM
if maths q is presented vertically
eg. 45
+ 23
=
= use visual WM
children with poor WM are unable to meet the learning demands of structured activities due to WM becoming overloaded and crucial info being lost = leads to child guessing or abandoning activity

Question 13

Help

• teachers
• psychologists

Answer 13

teachers - auditory support - 1 instruction at a time, being clear, short and specific
-visual support - instruction written, checklists and use visual aids
psychologists - can test what type of interventions are most effective for child eg.
-specific training on problem area
-cognitive training targeting a domain - general skils like WM
-training targeting metacognitive aspects of memory such as strategies