Applying computational modeling to assess age‐, sex‐, and strategy‐related differences in Spin the Pots, a working memory task for 2‐ to 4‐year‐olds

Abstract

Working memory (WM) is a key component of a larger executive functioning (EF) system that also includes inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility (Miyake, Friedman, Witzki, Howerter, & Wager, 2000). WM is defined as the ability to mentally retain, update, and/ or manipulate information for a short time, on the scale of seconds (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1971). Impairments in WM result in difficulties selecting, maintaining, and updating information (Shimamura, 2000). Most researchers consider the maintenance of information in memory different from the manipulation and updating of information in memory. The former is generally referred to as short-term memory. The latter is generally considered to be WM (Garon, Bryson, &

Adaptation of the Missing Scan Task to a touchscreen format for assessing working memory capacity in children

“…We found that children's working memory scores on the touchscreen Missing Scan Task increased with age. Age-related changes in children's WMC performance accord with the findings of other researchers (Boudreau et al, 2018;Case et al, 1982;Gathercole et al, 2004;Roman et al, 2014;Zimmermann et al, 2021). In addition, the results from this study generally agreed with the results obtained by researchers using object-based versions of the Missing Scan Task.…”

“…Children's working memory capacity (WMC) increases over development (Case, Kurland, & Goldberg, 1982; Gathercole, Pickering, Ambridge, & Wearing, 2004). Assessing children's WMC can be challenging for a variety of reasons, however (Roman, Pisoni, & Kronenberger, 2014; Zimmermann, Frank, Subiaul, & Barr, 2021). These include children's developing verbal abilities and their limited interest in tedious or repetitive tasks.…”

“…A number of tasks have been developed to assess children's WMC, many of which involve three‐dimensional (3D) objects. These tasks include Spin the Pots (Hughes & Ensor, 2005; Zimmermann et al, 2021), Hide and Seek (Boudreau, Dempsey, Smith, & Garon, 2018; Garon, Smith, & Bryson, 2014), Magic Wand (Boudreau et al, 2018; Diamond, Prevor, Callender, & Druin, 1997), the Imitation Sorting Task (Alp, 1994), and a card‐based visual counting span task (Case et al, 1982; Marcovitch, Boseovski, Knapp, & Kane, 2010). Children's verbal WM has been assessed with tasks that involve the verbal repetition of a series of words or digits (Carlson, Moses, & Breton, 2002; Case et al, 1982; Davis & Pratt, 1995), either ordered (forward or backward) or unordered.…”

Reexamining models of early learning in the digital age: Applications for learning in the wild.

“…Figure 5 shows the hypothetical likelihood of transfer of learning accounting for individual differences in working memory capacity (child characteristic) and cognitive load and toddlers’ immediate and deferred imitation from media when learning from an interactive (app) and noninteractive (video). The figure contrasts trajectories for learning from real-life experiences where constraints will be based on working memory (e.g., Zimmermann et al, 2021) and the amount of information to be learned (e.g., Barr et al, 2016). Over time both increase.…”