No abstract

Concentration, a very popular memory game, requires players to maintain a large amount of visuospatial information. Game performance was investigated in a controlled way with 80 5- to 10-year-old children and 32 adults. In overall performance, 5- to 10-year-old children did not differ, but adults outperformed them. Several indicators were derived on strategic behavior and visuospatial memory aspects in the game. Compared with younger children, 10-year-olds and adults were more efficient in information gathering, but they also showed a higher rate of information loss in the course of the game. Surprisingly, 5-year-olds had the lowest rate of spatial errors. Overall, the results contradict the anecdotal evidence of young children as experts in visuospatial memory. Implications for assumptions about age-dependent internal representations of visuospatial material are discussed.

Prospective memory performance as a measure of everyday cognitive functioning is of increasing importance for developmental research. However, comparisons of studies on prospective memory development in adults reveal essential differences. Although some studies report no age effects, others nd age effects of widely varying magnitudes. We suggest that differences in these ndings on prospective memory performance can be explained by an age by task interaction (i.e., large amounts of cognitive load imposed by time-based prospective memory tasks disproportionally penalise older adults who possess fewer cognitive resources). We explored our hypothesis in a study with 90 young adults (Mˆ24.0 years) and 75 older adults (Mˆ69.0 years) by manipulating the overall cognitive processing demands of the prospective task situation. We varied the cognitive load of the background task while holding constant the time-based prospective memory task. Results indicate that the effects of increased overall processing demands strongly in uence older adults' performance. Results are discussed within the framework of capacity explanations of cognitive ageing that focus on the role of working memory resources in monitoring processes.

Recent studies on developmental differences in spatial memory have reported equivocal results. Some found an age-dependent improvement of memory performance whereas others did not. The two studies reported here investigate age differences in memory for visual-spatial information. A picture reconstruction task with simultaneous presentation of scene-like visual-spatial arrangements was used. Subjects had to recognise objects and to reconstruct the initial spatial arrangement. The first study with 5to 10year-olds produced the typical age-dependent improvement in recognising visual material as well as in remembering the locations of specific objects. No effect for age was obtained in memory for the critical loci themselves. The second study with 4to 6-year-olds revealed similar results. Error analyses indicated that in younger children the association between object identity and object location is weaker than in older children. The results are considered as evidence for the assumption that spatial information is not necessarily represented as a feature of an item. Alternative types of representations of spatial information in the picture reconstruction task are discussed.

Zusammenfassung: Kinder mit Dyskalkulie zeigen neben den, das Störungsbild konstituierenden Schwierigkeiten im Rechnen auch Defizite der numerischen Basiskompetenzen, die als direkte Vorläuferfunktionen des Grundrechnens betrachtet werden ( Geary & Hoard, 2001 ). Ziel der vorliegenden Studie war zu prüfen, in welchem Umfang rechenschwache Kinder noch am Ende der Grundschulzeit in der dritten und vierten Klassenstufe solche numerischen Defizite haben. Jeweils 24 isoliert rechenschwache und 24 nach den Kriterien Alter, Geschlecht und Intelligenz individuell parallelisierte normal rechnende Kinder der dritten und vierten Klasse wurden im Hinblick auf die numerischen Basiskompetenzen Zahlbegriff, Mengenbegriff und Zählfertigkeit untersucht. Es zeigt sich, dass rechenschwache Kinder noch in den letzten Grundschuljahren deutliche Defizite der numerischen Basiskompetenzen aufweisen. Die Ergebnisse werden dahingehend diskutiert, in welcher Weise diese Defizite an der Entstehung und Aufrechterhaltung von Rechenschwierigkeiten beteiligt sein können. Daraus wird auch die therapeutische Relevanz der Befunde für die Förderung rechenschwacher Kinder deutlich.