The Hebb repetition paradigm has recently attracted attention as a measure of serial order learning, which underlies word-form learning abilities. Although children are good vocabulary learners, it is surprising that previous Hebb learning studies with young children show rather weak Hebb effects. In this study, we conducted two experiments to…

Expressive writing (EW), or writing about one's thoughts and feelings, has been posited to reduce the working memory (WM) load that pressure and anxiety can impose on test-takers. The mechanisms of EW are far from clear, however, and social and developmental questions about its role in shaping children's engagement with academic contexts remain.…

There have been many studies exploring the advantages that bilingualism confers to individuals' working memory and metacognition (see Ransdell, 2006; Del Missier et al., 2010). The hypothesis of language critical period states that if no language learning and teaching happen during the critical period, an individual will never be able to fully…

We investigated the potential influence of implicit learning mechanisms on L2 morphosyntactic attainment by examining the relationship between age of onset (AoO), two cognitive abilities hypothesized to underlie implicit learning (phonological short-term memory and implicit statistical learning), and performance on an auditory grammaticality…

The visual working memory forms the basis for cognitive processes in learning, and it is therefore of interest to gain greater insight into gender and age differences in visual working memory among pupils. In this study, we wanted to see if there are differences between children in first, third, fifth, seventh and ninth grade in Norwegian schools…

Learning, attentional, and perseverative deficits are characteristic of cognitive aging. In this study, genetically diverse CD-1 mice underwent longitudinal training in a task asserted to tax working memory capacity and its dependence on selective attention. Beginning at 3 mo of age, animals were trained for 12 d to perform in a dual radial-arm…

This article reviews research on working memory (WM) and its use in second language (L2) acquisition research. Recent developments in the model and issues surrounding the operationalization of the construct itself are presented, followed by a discussion of various methods of measuring WM. These methods include word and digit span tasks, reading,…

This study explored the contribution of two working memory (WM) systems to reading performance in younger and older children. Results showed significant age-related differences in verbal and visual-spatial WM performance were maintained when articulation speed and short-term memory were partialed from the analysis and that WM predicted age-related…

Two studies on M-capacity found factor-analytical and correlational evidence that five M-capacity tests share a common source of variance and that, as subjects' increase in age, scores increase at a similar rate. Results suggest that, in the 6-11 age range, M-capacity can be measured with a battery of tests. (AA)

Preschool children were given a memory task that required repeating a list of animal names and a sentence imitation task. Results confirmed a relationship between word span and language imitation in younger preschool children and the notion of a memory constraint on early spontaneous language. Increasing mastery of linguistic rules appeared to…

Examined relationships among working memory, memory span, and reading skills in children and adults. Found that working memory and short-term memory skills develop through adolescence, but working memory skills show declines in adulthood. Age-related declines in memory appear to be related to the task's processing demands, which may affect the…

Examined whether speech rate is related to the amount recalled and if developmental increases in speech rate allow faster rehearsal with age, and hence, greater recall. Found that the group relationship was clear and replicable but that speech rates of individual children were not good predictors of those children's memory spans; age was found to…

Two experiments examined the development of children's memory for spatial location or color. Results refuted the proposal that in contrast to color, spatial location would not show developmental improvement because it is remembered automatically. Suggests that, for the age range studied, there was developmental change in the efficiency of…

Investigated development of working memory in the transitional period from infancy to preschool years. The age-related increase in scores on the Imitation Sorting Task (IST) appeared to be about one unit every six months. Results suggest that the IST has a good construct validity. (AA)

Two experiments on children's inferences and associative memory provided a supportive test of fuzzy-trace theory. Results indicated that false recognition of associated instances with delay declined for all children, and categorical inferences increased for older children. Verbatim memory and inferences were uncorrelated under short delay but…