Lecture 2: Zdena op de Macks
Memory development
Working memory
- One of 3 core executive functions
- Ability to maintain and manipulate information
- Limited capacity
- Necessary for planning, reasoning, problem solving and performance monitoring
(higher-order cognitive processes)
- Information comes from new information & knowledge from long-term memory
Different types of memory
What is memory
- Constructed based on prior knowledge & personal interpretation
- Quality depends on
o Ability to understand the experience
o Symbolic understanding
o Language proficiency
o Metacognition
Early memory development
- Infants, even fetuses, remember experiences
o Newborns recognize mothers voice (recognition memory) – implicit memory
o 14-month olds can pull apart a toy 24 hours later (deferred imitation) –
episodic memory
- Infants show ability to remember temporal order of events (before age 2)
- Developmental increases in memory quality and temporal context between age 1&3
Implicit memory development
- Recognition memory shows limited developmental improvement – implicit memory
does not develop with age
- Individual differences in recognition memory predict differences in intelligence
,Explicit memory development
- Episodic memory development depends on scripts: present by age 5 and improved
through maternal elaborativeness
- Preschoolers also remember novel events, especially when emotionally salient
- However, younger children tend to confuse novel events with scripts, older children
can distinguish better
Long term memory
- Different types of memory seem largely independent
- Memory improves with understanding, language acquisition and metacognitive skills
- Implicit memory is present before birth, limited improvement with age
- Explicit memory present in infancy and improves across early childhood
Working memory & school
- Remembering instructions
- Performing multiple thinking steps at the same time
- Solve math problem in head
- Remember text without having to read back
- Remember rules of a game while playing
- Research:
o Better predictor than IQ for later academic achievement
o Predicts subsequent learning in children with learning difficulties (IQ doesn’t )
o Brain activity during a visuospatial WM task predicts arithmetical performance
2 years later
Phonological loop
- Memory span is number of items that can be retained
- Factors that inbfleunce memory span
o Age
o Word length
o Articulation rate
- At 5 years old, children switch from mostly visual to mostly phonological working
memory
- Phonological confusability/similarity effect: easier to remember words that sound
different from each other (non-homophones), compared to words that sound similar
, o 3-5 year olds don’t show this effect, perhaps because they rely on visual
memory system
Picture confusion memory task
As memory development proceeds, less use of visual working memory
5 year olds: visually similar pictures most difficult
10-year olds: pictures with long names most difficult
Working memory development
- Seem to be different developmental trajectories for maintenance and manipulation
Working memory types
- Modality:
o Visuospatial
o Phonological
- Process
o Maintaining information (digit span test)
o Manipulating information
- Ability
o Capacity, updating
How to recognize low working memory
- Early identification important
- Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF)
o Very lengthy – there is a short form
- Poor attention span and high levels of distractibility – poor in planning and organizing
information
o Difference ADHD: high rates oppositional/hyperactive behaviors, problems
with inhibitory control, shifting between activities, emotion regulation
Working memory training
- May lead to more efficient strategy use among adolescents
- Adolescents show potential for working memory
- Immature pattern of brain activity not necessarily related to age, but more so strategy
use – adolescents can recruit these areas after training
Recap
- WM important for school performance
- Different developmental trajectories for
o Visual vs phonological
o Manipulation and maintaining information
- WM is trainable
o Changes in performance
o Increase activity DLPFC
o WM of children shows potential: at adult level after training
Memory development
Working memory
- One of 3 core executive functions
- Ability to maintain and manipulate information
- Limited capacity
- Necessary for planning, reasoning, problem solving and performance monitoring
(higher-order cognitive processes)
- Information comes from new information & knowledge from long-term memory
Different types of memory
What is memory
- Constructed based on prior knowledge & personal interpretation
- Quality depends on
o Ability to understand the experience
o Symbolic understanding
o Language proficiency
o Metacognition
Early memory development
- Infants, even fetuses, remember experiences
o Newborns recognize mothers voice (recognition memory) – implicit memory
o 14-month olds can pull apart a toy 24 hours later (deferred imitation) –
episodic memory
- Infants show ability to remember temporal order of events (before age 2)
- Developmental increases in memory quality and temporal context between age 1&3
Implicit memory development
- Recognition memory shows limited developmental improvement – implicit memory
does not develop with age
- Individual differences in recognition memory predict differences in intelligence
,Explicit memory development
- Episodic memory development depends on scripts: present by age 5 and improved
through maternal elaborativeness
- Preschoolers also remember novel events, especially when emotionally salient
- However, younger children tend to confuse novel events with scripts, older children
can distinguish better
Long term memory
- Different types of memory seem largely independent
- Memory improves with understanding, language acquisition and metacognitive skills
- Implicit memory is present before birth, limited improvement with age
- Explicit memory present in infancy and improves across early childhood
Working memory & school
- Remembering instructions
- Performing multiple thinking steps at the same time
- Solve math problem in head
- Remember text without having to read back
- Remember rules of a game while playing
- Research:
o Better predictor than IQ for later academic achievement
o Predicts subsequent learning in children with learning difficulties (IQ doesn’t )
o Brain activity during a visuospatial WM task predicts arithmetical performance
2 years later
Phonological loop
- Memory span is number of items that can be retained
- Factors that inbfleunce memory span
o Age
o Word length
o Articulation rate
- At 5 years old, children switch from mostly visual to mostly phonological working
memory
- Phonological confusability/similarity effect: easier to remember words that sound
different from each other (non-homophones), compared to words that sound similar
, o 3-5 year olds don’t show this effect, perhaps because they rely on visual
memory system
Picture confusion memory task
As memory development proceeds, less use of visual working memory
5 year olds: visually similar pictures most difficult
10-year olds: pictures with long names most difficult
Working memory development
- Seem to be different developmental trajectories for maintenance and manipulation
Working memory types
- Modality:
o Visuospatial
o Phonological
- Process
o Maintaining information (digit span test)
o Manipulating information
- Ability
o Capacity, updating
How to recognize low working memory
- Early identification important
- Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF)
o Very lengthy – there is a short form
- Poor attention span and high levels of distractibility – poor in planning and organizing
information
o Difference ADHD: high rates oppositional/hyperactive behaviors, problems
with inhibitory control, shifting between activities, emotion regulation
Working memory training
- May lead to more efficient strategy use among adolescents
- Adolescents show potential for working memory
- Immature pattern of brain activity not necessarily related to age, but more so strategy
use – adolescents can recruit these areas after training
Recap
- WM important for school performance
- Different developmental trajectories for
o Visual vs phonological
o Manipulation and maintaining information
- WM is trainable
o Changes in performance
o Increase activity DLPFC
o WM of children shows potential: at adult level after training
