Working memory following improvements in articulation rate in children with cerebral palsy

1995 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desirée A. White ◽  
Suzanne Craft ◽  
Sandra Hale ◽  
Jeffrey Schatz ◽  
T.S. Park
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cerebral Palsy ◽  
Memory Span ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Original Study ◽  
Verbal Material ◽  
Articulation Rate ◽  
Primary Determinant

AbstractIt has been postulated that rehearsal rate is the primary determinant of working memory capacity for verbal material (Baddeley et al., 1975). A previous study of normal control children and children with spastic diplegic cerebral palsy (SDCP) suggested that covert rather than overt rehearsal rate determines working memory capacity (White et al., 1994). In the current study, a subset of SDCP children who received a surgical treatment to relieve spasticity were retested on measures of articulation rate and memory span. A subset of control children from the original study were also retested. The SDCP group showed improvements in articulation rate at follow-up, though memory span did not change and was again equivalent to that of controls. These findings indicate that increases in articulation rate are not necessarily accompanied by improvements in memory span, and provide additional evidence that working memory capacity may be determined by covert rather than overt articulatory rehearsal. (JINS, 1995, I, 49–55.)

scholarly journals Children With Differing Developmental Trajectories of Prelinguistic Communication Skills: Language and Working Memory at Age 5

2014 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 1026-1039 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sira Määttä ◽  
Marja-Leena Laakso ◽  
Asko Tolvanen ◽  
Timo Ahonen ◽  
Tuija Aro
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Developmental Trajectories ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Risk Groups ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Prelinguistic Communication

Purpose In this article, the authors examine the developmental continuity from prelinguistic communication to kindergarten age in language and working memory capacity. Method Following work outlining 6 groups of children with different trajectories of early communication development (ECD; Määttä, Laakso, Tolvanen, Ahonen, & Aro, 2012), the authors examined their later development by psychometric assessment. Ninety-one children first assessed at ages 12–21 months completed a battery of language and working memory tests at age 5;3 (years;months). Results Two of the ECD groups previously identified as being at risk for language difficulties continued to show weaker performance at follow-up. Seventy-nine percent of the children with compromised language skills at follow-up were identified on the basis of the ECD groups, but the number of false positives was high. The 2 at-risk groups also differed significantly from the typically developing groups in the measures tapping working memory capacity. Conclusions In line with the dimensional view of language impairment, the accumulation of early delays predicted the amount of later difficulties; however, at the individual level, the prediction had rather low specificity. The results imply a strong link between language and working memory and call for further studies examining the early developmental interaction between language and memory.

scholarly journals Working-memory capacity predicts the executive control of visual search among distractors: The influences of sustained and selective attention

2009 ◽  
Vol 62 (7) ◽  
pp. 1430-1454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradley J. Poole ◽  
Michael J. Kane
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Search ◽  
Target Location ◽  
Memory Span ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Attentional Focus ◽  
Search Tasks ◽  
Span Tasks ◽  
Target Locations

Variation in working-memory capacity (WMC) predicts individual differences in only some attention-control capabilities. Whereas higher WMC subjects outperform lower WMC subjects in tasks requiring the restraint of prepotent but inappropriate responses, and the constraint of attentional focus to target stimuli against distractors, they do not differ in prototypical visual-search tasks, even those that yield steep search slopes and engender top-down control. The present three experiments tested whether WMC, as measured by complex memory span tasks, would predict search latencies when the 1–8 target locations to be searched appeared alone, versus appearing among distractor locations to be ignored, with the latter requiring selective attentional focus. Subjects viewed target-location cues and then fixated on those locations over either long (1,500–1,550 ms) or short (300 ms) delays. Higher WMC subjects identified targets faster than did lower WMC subjects only in the presence of distractors and only over long fixation delays. WMC thus appears to affect subjects’ ability to maintain a constrained attentional focus over time.

scholarly journals Mathematics students demonstrate superior visuo-spatial working memory to humanities students under conditions of low central executive processing load

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-219
Author(s):  
Paula Jane Hubber ◽  
Camilla Gilmore ◽  
Lucy Cragg
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Mathematics Achievement ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Memory Span ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Central Executive ◽  
Mathematics Students ◽  
Span Tasks ◽  
Humanities Students

Previous research has demonstrated that working memory performance is linked to mathematics achievement. Most previous studies have involved children and arithmetic rather than more advanced forms of mathematics. This study compared the performance of groups of adult mathematics and humanities students. Experiment 1 employed verbal and visuo-spatial working memory span tasks using a novel face-matching processing element. Results showed that mathematics students had greater working memory capacity in the visuo-spatial domain only. Experiment 2 replicated this and demonstrated that neither visuo-spatial short-term memory nor endogenous spatial attention explained the visuo-spatial working memory differences. Experiment 3 used working memory span tasks with more traditional verbal or visuo-spatial processing elements to explore the effect of processing type. In this study mathematics students showed superior visuo-spatial working memory capacity only when the processing involved had a comparatively low level of central executive involvement. Both visuo-spatial working memory capacity and general visuo-spatial skills predicted mathematics achievement.

scholarly journals Visual-spatial working memory span of Indonesian children with deafness in oral, total, and sign language communication methods

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 97
Author(s):  
Johana Aprilia ◽  
Frieda Maryam Mangunsong
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Memory Span ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Visual Spatial ◽  
Language Communication ◽  
Visual Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Communication Methods

Children with hearing impairment or deafness experience cognitive function delays but not limited visual-spatial working memory, which is commonly used to solve mathematical problems. Previous studies have discovered that visual or spatial working memory in such children is different because of the communication methods that rely on vision. This study explores the visual-spatial working memory in children with deafness by measuring the memory of 70 elementary school children with deafness and identifying their communication methods through questionnaires. The questionnaires were completed by the children’s parents. The visual-spatial working memory measurement utilized the Lion Game through Zoom meetings. Consequently, it was found that there was no significant difference in visual-spatial working memory capacity in children with hearing impairment using oral, total communication, and sign language. It can be argued that in children with deafness, their visual-spatial working memory span with oral, total, and sign language communication methods have still not reached the maximum point. The use of hearing aids, popular among such children also did not significantly enhance visual-spatial working memory capacity. This research recommends parents be more attentive not only toward the communication methods of children with deafness but also to their cognitive function development. 

scholarly journals Neural Correlates of Syntactic Ambiguity in Sentence Comprehension for Low and High Span Readers

2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. 1562-1575 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian J. Fiebach ◽  
Sandra H. Vos ◽  
Angela D. Friederici
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Memory Span ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Syntactic Ambiguity ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Processing Demands ◽  
Superior Portion

Syntactically ambiguous sentences have been found to be difficult to process, in particular, for individuals with low working memory capacity. The current study used fMRI to investigate the neural basis of this effect in the processing of written sentences. Participants with high and low working memory capacity read sentences with either a short or long region of temporary syntactic ambiguity while being scanned. A distributed left-dominant network in the peri-sylvian region was identified to support sentence processing in the critical region of the sentence. Within this network, only the superior portion of Broca's area (BA 44) and a parietal region showed an activation increase as a function of the length of the syntactically ambiguous region in the sentence. Furthermore, it was only the BA 44 region that exhibited an interaction of working memory span, length of the syntactic ambiguity, and sentence complexity. In this area, the activation increase for syntactically more complex sentences became only significant under longer regions of ambiguity, and for low span readers only. This finding suggests that neural activity in BA 44 increases during sentence comprehension when processing demands increase, be it due to syntactic processing demands or by an interaction with the individually available working memory capacity.

scholarly journals A Validation Study of the German Complex-Span Tasks and Some General Considerations on Task Translation Procedures in Cognitive Psychology

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 725-736 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Rummel ◽  
Lena Steindorf ◽  
Ivan Marevic ◽  
Daniel Danner
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Memory Span ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Complex Span ◽  
Reasoning Test ◽  
Equivalence Tests ◽  
Span Tasks ◽  
Open Question

Abstract. Automated complex-span tasks are widely used to assess working-memory capacity and the English versions show good psychometric properties ( Unsworth, Heitz, Schrock, & Engle, 2005 ). However, it is generally an open question whether translated task versions have the same properties as the original versions and whether results obtained with translated tasks can be interpreted equivalently to those obtained with the original tasks. We translated the complex-span tasks and had a sample of German participants perform these tasks as well as a running-memory-span task and a reasoning test. We assessed the reliabilities of the German complex-span tasks and their construct and criterion-related validities. Extrapolating from cross-cultural literature, we also employed a test of measurement invariance to compare the correlational patterns as well as the construct structure between the German sample and a similar North-American sample. Results show that the German complex-span tasks are reliable and valid indicators of working-memory capacity and that they are metrically and functionally equivalent to the original versions. As measurement equivalence is an important but often neglected topic in basic cognitive psychology, we also highlight the general benefits of using equivalence tests when translating cognitive tasks.

scholarly journals Differences in Working Memory Capacity Affect Online Spoken Word Recognition: Evidence From Eye Movements

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 233121651983962 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gal Nitsan ◽  
Arthur Wingfield ◽  
Limor Lavie ◽  
Boaz M Ben-David
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Word Recognition ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Memory Span ◽  
Spoken Word Recognition ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
High Load ◽  
Low Load

Individual differences in working memory capacity have been gaining recognition as playing an important role in speech comprehension, especially in noisy environments. Using the visual world eye-tracking paradigm, a recent study by Hadar and coworkers found that online spoken word recognition was slowed when listeners were required to retain in memory a list of four spoken digits (high load) compared with only one (low load). In the current study, we recognized that the influence of a digit preload might be greater for individuals who have a more limited memory span. We compared participants with higher and lower memory spans on the time course for spoken word recognition by testing eye-fixations on a named object, relative to fixations on an object whose name shared phonology with the named object. Results show that when a low load was imposed, differences in memory span had no effect on the time course of preferential fixations. However, with a high load, listeners with lower span were delayed by ∼550 ms in discriminating target from sound-sharing competitors, relative to higher span listeners. This follows an assumption that the interference effect of a memory preload is not a fixed value, but rather, its effect is greater for individuals with a smaller memory span. Interestingly, span differences affected the timeline for spoken word recognition in noise, but not offline accuracy. This highlights the significance of using eye-tracking as a measure for online speech processing. Results further emphasize the importance of considering differences in cognitive capacity, even when testing normal hearing young adults.

scholarly journals The Generality of Working Memory Capacity: A Latent-Variable Approach to Verbal and Visuospatial Memory Span and Reasoning.

2004 ◽  
Vol 133 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Kane ◽  
David Z. Hambrick ◽  
Stephen W. Tuholski ◽  
Oliver Wilhelm ◽  
Tabitha W. Payne ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Latent Variable ◽  
Memory Span ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Visuospatial Memory ◽  
Variable Approach ◽  
Latent Variable Approach
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