Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil

Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil

1. Aims

   • investigate the capacity of the phonological loop and if it differs across age groups (5-17) using digit span as a measure
   • compare the findings of Spanish school children with Anglo-Saxon (British) school children and people with dementia

2. Sample

   • They uses a sample of 570 volunteers from schools in Madrid ages 5 - 17 (Were controlled for education and cognitive levels e.g. no hearing/sight/literacy difficulties, no year repeaters, etc.

3. Procedure

   • An experimenter read a sequence of digits aloud to ppts individually, they were then asked to repeat the sequence in order aloud, the digit span was recorded as the longest sequence the ppts could recall 2/3 times with no errors

4. Results

   • 5 year olds = 3.76, smoothly increases to 11yrs old = 5.28, slowed and stabilised = 5.91
   • Elderly ppts have a significantly higher digit span than 5yr olds but not any other age group
   • When the elderly were compared to those with dementia there was no significant difference meaning the poor digit span was due to aging rather than dementia
   • Its similar to English research in that digit span increases over time, however the digit span was far lower than English

5. Colclusions

   • Digit span increases through childhood to adolescence where it then reaches stability
   • Digit span is significantly shorter that anglo-saxon (possibly due to word length - spanish words for numbers are longer than english ones e.g one/uno)
   • Poor digit span is possibly due to aging rather than dementia

6. GRAVE

   • G: Large sample size (570 ppts), Ethnocentric - only uses spanish ppts (but did compare to english), age bias - only students
   • R: Standardised procedure - digits were read aloud at a constant rate/ time of day, Controlled sample for extraneous variables - repeating a year/ hearing loss
   • A: supports phonological loop developing around 7 due to no subvocal rehearsal before then, digit span correlates to cognitive difficulties and awareness of this can help with effective teaching techniques/see what age learning is best
   • V: recalling digits lacks mundane realism because they aren't everyday stm memory tasks, children weren't directly tested for impairments and they instead relied on information shared by parents which may not be accurate
   • E: Participants volunteered which automatically gives consent (parents gave consent for younger children)