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Stimulus similarity decrements in children's working memory span

Conlin, J; Gathercole, S; Adams, J.W

Authors

J Conlin

S Gathercole

J.W Adams



Abstract

Two experiments investigated the impact of the relationship between processing and storage stimuli on the working memory span task performance of children aged 7 and 9 years of age. In Experiment 1, two types of span task were administered (sentence span and operation span), and participants were required to recall either the products of the processing task (sentence-final word, arithmetic total) or a word or digit unrelated to the processing task. Experiment 2 contrasted sentence span and operation span combined with storage of either words or digits, in tasks in which the item to be remembered was not a direct product of the processing task in either condition. In both experiments, memory span was significantly greater when the items to be recalled belonged to a different stimulus category from the material that was processed, so that in sentence span tasks, number recall was superior to word recall, and in operation span tasks, word recall was superior to number recall. Explanations of these findings in terms of similarity-based interference and response competition in working memory are discussed.

Citation

Conlin, J., Gathercole, S., & Adams, J. (2005). Stimulus similarity decrements in children's working memory span. Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, 58(8), 1434-1446. https://doi.org/10.1080/02724980443000683

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date 2005-02
Deposit Date Mar 23, 2007
Journal The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A - Human Experimental Psychology
Print ISSN 0272-4987
Electronic ISSN 1464-0740
Publisher Psychology Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 58
Issue 8
Pages 1434-1446
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/02724980443000683