development of memory and processing capacity

The assumption of some developmental theories that short-term memory is the workspace of higher cognitive processes, and consequently that span measures processing capacity, is claimed to be inconsistent with the working memory literature. 4 experiments, using children aged 5 to 12 years, contrast t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Child development 1994-10, Vol.65 (5), p.1338-1356
Main Authors: Halford, Graeme S., Maybery, Murray T., O'Hare, Anthony W., Grant, Paul
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age Differences
Age Factors
Age groups
Australia
Biological and medical sciences
Child
Child Development
Children
Cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive Development
Cognitive Processes
Cognitive processing
Development
Developmental psychology
Elementary Education
Female
Foreign Countries
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Male
Memory
Memory development
Memory interference
Memory Load
Memory Span
Mental Recall
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reasoning
Rehearsal
Relationship
school children
Short Term Memory
Social research
Space storage
Working memory
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Summary:The assumption of some developmental theories that short-term memory is the workspace of higher cognitive processes, and consequently that span measures processing capacity, is claimed to be inconsistent with the working memory literature. 4 experiments, using children aged 5 to 12 years, contrast this theory with a model in which short-term memory and the processing space component of working memory are at least partly distinct. Experiments 1 and 2 varied processing load, holding duration constant. The processing load manipulation had little effect on recall of a short-term memory preload. Experiments 3 and 4 failed to support the prediction that the greater processing efficiency of older children would be associated with slower loss of information from short-term memory. Although counting and rehearsal rates increased with age, and correlated with span, they did not predict the rate of loss of memory preload due to intervening counting. The data suggest that effects obtained with short-term memory span do not provide clear indications of overall working memory development, because short-term memory span and the processing space component of working memory entail distinct systems.
ISSN:0009-3920
1467-8624
DOI:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1994.tb00820.x