Visual working memory (WM) plays a pivotal role in integrating fragments into meaningful units, but no study has addressed how visual WM integration takes place in children. The current study examined whether WM integration emerges once preschoolers master Gestalt cue and can retain two representations in WM (automatic integration hypothesis), or…

We investigated how visual working memory (WM) develops with age across the early elementary school period (6-7 years), early adolescence (11-13 years), and early adulthood (18-25 years). The work focuses on changes in two parameters: the number of objects retained at least in part, and the amount of feature-detail remembered for such objects.…

By approximately 6 years of age, children can use time-based visual selection to ignore stationary stimuli, already in the visual field and prioritize the selection of newly arriving stimuli. This ability can be studied using preview search, a version of the visual search paradigm with an added temporal component, in which one set of distractors…

Visuospatial processing speed underlies several cognitive functions critical for successful completion of everyday tasks, including driving and walking. While it is widely accepted that visuospatial processing speed peaks in early adulthood, performance across the lifespan remains incompletely characterized. Additionally, there remains a lack of…

Several models of working memory (WM) have been proposed in the literature. Most of the research on the architecture of WM is based on adults or older children, but less is known about younger children. In this study, we tested various models of WM on a sample of 739 Italian children, ranging in age from 3 to 8 years, primarily of European…

Selective attention is fundamental for learning across many situations, yet it exhibits protracted development, with young children often failing to filter out distractors. In this research, we examine links between selective attention and working memory (WM) capacity across development. One possibility is that WM is resource-limited, with…

Categories are fundamental to everyday life and the ability to learn new categories is relevant across the lifespan. Categories are ubiquitous across modalities, supporting complex processes such as object recognition and speech perception. Prior work has proposed that different categories may engage learning systems with unique developmental…

Background: Previous research showed a significant association between mathematics and working memory (WM). However, evidence regarding the different effects of verbal and visuospatial WM on mathematical abilities was very limited. Aims: The current research aims to explore the relationship between verbal and visuospatial WM with mathematical…

Visual, as compared to verbal, tasks are often assumed to be easier for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but is this true for story comprehension? This study evaluated story comprehension monitoring across visual, listening, and written modalities and assessed predictors in two closely matched groups (age, socioeconomic status,…

Background: Work surrounding the relationship between visuospatial working memory (WM) and mathematics performance is gaining significant traction as a result of a focus on improving academic attainment. Aims: This study examined the relative contributions of verbal and visuospatial simple and complex WM measures to mathematics in primary school…

Selective attention is fundamental for learning across many situations, yet it exhibits protracted development, with young children often failing to filter out distractors. In this research, we examine links between selective attention and working memory (WM) capacity across development. One possibility is that WM is resource-limited, with…

Background: The study aimed to explore to what extent variables associated with lexical and sublexical spelling processes predicted single word spelling ability and whether patterns of lexical and sublexical processes were different across ages. Methods: Beginning (mean age 7 years, N=144) and advanced (mean age 9 years, N=114) English-speaking…

Working memory (WM) measures are routinely integrated into comprehensive diagnostic evaluations. However, there is little research regarding the underlying components of WM and their developmental trajectories. The current study examined the developmental trajectories of distinct WM components in a sample of 303 individuals ages 6 through…

This study investigated the construct of paired associate learning (PAL) and its associations with Chinese word writing in kindergarten children. A total of 188 Chinese children (95 boys, mean age = 5.65 years; SD = 0.34) from [Xi'an], Mainland China in the third year of kindergarten participated in this study. Children were assessed on measures…

Recent advances in understanding visual working memory, the limited information held in mind for use in ongoing processing, are extended here to examine auditory working memory development. Research with arrays of visual objects has shown how to distinguish the capacity, in terms of the "number" of objects retained, from the…