week 3: memory development

week 3: memory development

1. when do children rehearse? Begin sub-vocally- will say it aloud or move their lips

   • Flavell et al 1996: found evidence of verbal rehearsal when children had a space helmet on and mouth exposed. 10% in 5 yr olds, 60% in 7 yr olds, 85% in 10 year olds
     • Little evidence of young children rehearsing - may be metacognitively they do not know the importance of rehearsal. Could be too much effort for little resources.
       • rehearsal and processing = effortful, do not come automatically.

2. evidence of increase in basic memory capacity with age- but cannot account for all increases in memory performance. Must distinguish between basic capacity and the work the capacity does to increase performance

   • getting more performance out of their basic memory capacities

3. Meta-cognition = the extent to which you understand your own cognition

4. Guttentag 1984 - used finger tapping measure of processing effort, normal finger tapping compared to tapping whilst on a rehearsal task. 7/8 year olds show slower tapping to 11 year olds. On any given tapping decrease, older children remember more than younger.

   • older children rehearse more effectively- rehearsal is harder for younger children

5. Can older children hold more items in WM than younger? DEMPSTER 1981- digit span and letter tasks, 3-4 items @ 5 years, 5-6 items @ 8 years

   • What affects working memory span? Tapes analogy- hard limit to how much info can be stored on tape. Finite storage material.
     • word in red about to over-written by the next word unless it is rehearsed back onto the loop. FINITE STORAGE MATERIAL

6. 2 factors influencing memory: 1. DURATION/SIZE OF LOOP 2. ARTICULATION RATE

   • Hulme et al 1984 - Linear rels of remembering more (better working memory) and age. Proportional relationship
     • Measured children's articulation rate 'coca-cola...' in a certain period of time- how fast can you speak? Articulation rate = gets better with age
       • Phonological loop stays the same size, articulation increases. young child can fit 3 words in a 3 second gap, older child can fit 6 words in the same gap
         • Phonological loop increases with articulation - younger children 3sec loop and 3 items, older children will have BOTH longer loop and more will fit into it. Double capacity and articulation increases. NON LINEAR RELS.

7. long words = linear, but remembered less well than short words. It is not the capacity but what you can do with it

8. Helps explain suprising variations: Chen & Stephenson, 1988 - Chinese speaking children have larger digit spans than English speaking children.

   • E.llis & Henneley 1980 - Welsh speaking have lower digit span/lower IQ.
     • Capacity will vary as a function of their language

9. Strategic encoding: Hitch et al 1989 >> repeated Hulme et al study but presented pictures> words. Only 10 year olds showed correlation between articulation rate and items in WM as they re-coded them into words. Strategic shift in how information is encoded, head to LEARN how to do this.

   • working memory increases with age, due o complex combination of strategy change and increasing speed and efficiency of articulatory rehearsal

10. Content knowledge - as you get older, the more you know generally, the more you know the better you perform on tasks, Need to control for many other factors/

    • Chi 1978- compared 10y chess experts with adult novices. 10 seconds to study arrangement of pieces. 10y took fewer trials to reposition perfectly. Repositioned 9.3/22 > 5.9/22 correctly.
    • HOWEVER- child experts may be self selecting for higher IQ and memory. SCHNEIDER ET AL - whether 10y were expert of just generally higher IQ: replicated experiment but compared mid-game positions to random positions and non-chess geometric patterns. Replicated chi's findings.
      • Difference of 10y less good for the random positions, difference eliminated for random patterns/unfamiliar objects

11. content knowledge can improve memory - interaction between experts remembering aspects of that but not with memory in general. Material is more deeply encoded. Depper encoding may decrease irrelevant information.

    • Associations between more readily activated- recalling one will lead to another. Use of strategies. Material is more familiar- recognition memory enhanced

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