Changes in the capacity of visual working memory in 5- to 10-year-olds

Riggs, Kevin J.; McTaggart, James; Simpson, Andrew; Freeman, Richard

doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2006.03.009

Cited by 139 publications

(206 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Cowan and colleagues (2005) tested children as young as 7 years and found capacity to increase from approximately 3.5 items at this age to 5.7 items for college students. Riggs et al (2006) expanded on these results by testing 5-, 7-, and 10-year-olds, and found that capacity increased from about 1.5 to 3.8 items during this period of development. Furthermore, Simmering (2008) showed that modifying the change detection task to be more appropriate for younger children allowed children as young as 3 years to successfully complete the task without inflating capacity estimates for older children and adults (see also Simmering, in press).…”

Section: Developmental Increases In Capacitymentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Both Cowan et al (2005) and Riggs et al (2006) discussed whether developmental improvements in children’s performance could be attributed to cognitive processes other than capacity, but provide compelling arguments for why capacity increases are the most likely source of developmental change. However, neither provides a specific proposal for how or why capacity changes during childhood.…”

Section: Developmental Increases In Capacitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Countless studies have demonstrated this limit in adults (see, e.g., Cowan, 2001, for review), and recent work has shown how VWM capacity increases early in development (e.g., Cowan et al, 2005; Riggs, McTaggart, Simpson, & Freeman, 2006; Ross-Sheehy, Oakes, & Luck, 2003). Despite how well-established capacity limits are empirically, there remains an active debate over the source of such limits (see Fukuda, Awh, & Vogel, 2010, for review) and the source of developmental change (see Simmering & Perone, 2011, for review).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 1 Simmering’s (2008) capacity estimates were higher than Riggs et al’s (2006) due different methods of calculating capacity across set size; Riggs et al averaged estimates from set sizes 1–5, whereas Simmering selected each participant’s highest estimate across set sizes. A control condition comparing performance of 5-year-olds in the modified version to the standard version used by Riggs et al revealed no difference across versions of the change detection task (see also Simmering, in press).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Models provide specificity: Testing a proposed mechanism of visual working memory capacity development

Simmering

Patterson

2012

Cognitive Development

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Numerous studies have established that visual working memory has a limited capacity, and that capacity increases during childhood. However, debate continues over the source of capacity limits and its developmental increase. Simmering (2008) adapted a computational model of spatial cognitive development, the Dynamic Field Theory, to explain not only the source of capacity limitations but also the developmental mechanism. According to the model, capacity is limited by the balance between excitation and inhibition that maintains multiple neural representations simultaneously. Moreover, development is implemented according to the Spatial Precision Hypothesis, which proposes that excitatory and inhibitory connections strengthen throughout early childhood. Critically, these changes in connectivity result in increasing precision and stability of neural representations over development. Here we test this developmental mechanism by probing children’s memory in a single-item change detection task. Results confirmed the model’s predictions, providing further support for this account of visual working memory capacity development.

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Section: Developmental Increases In Capacitymentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Developmental Increases In Capacitymentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Models provide specificity: Testing a proposed mechanism of visual working memory capacity development

Simmering

Patterson

2012

Cognitive Development

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“…WM capacity is assumed to be limited (Cowan, 2011;Miller, 1956), with considerable variability of capacity estimates across individuals (Luck and Vogel, 1997;Vogel and Machizawa, 2004) and age groups (Cowan et al, 2006;Jost et al, 2011;Riggs et al, 2006;Sander et al, 2011a). WM performance is not only dependent on successful retention of relevant information but also on efficient suppression of irrelevant information (McNab and Klingberg, 2008;Vogel et al, 2005;) during early and late stages of processing (Lavie et al, 2004;).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Amplitude modulations and inter-trial phase stability of alpha-oscillations differentially reflect working memory constraints across the lifespan

2012

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Working memory (WM) capacity increases across childhood, peaks in young adulthood, and declines thereafter. Developmental and aging theories suggest that deficient inhibitory control processes in children and older adults may underlie the lower performance relative to younger adults. Recently, oscillatory alpha power (7-13 Hz) of the electroencephalogram (EEG) has been suggested as a neural marker of inhibition processes contributing to WM performance ). We examined 20 children (10-13 years), 12 younger adults (20-26 years), and 20 older adults (70-76 years) in a cued change-detection paradigm. Behaviorally, we observed the expected lifespan peak in younger adults. EEG alpha power was generally reduced in older adults compared to children and younger adults. In line with previous research, hemispheric differences in alpha power related to attention and WM processes during the retention interval increased with load in younger adults. In children and older adults, lateralized alpha power increased from low to medium load conditions, but decreased for high load conditions. Furthermore, older adults showed higher inter-trial phase stability shortly after stimulus onset compared to children and younger adults. Our results show that inhibitory control processes as indexed by local alpha power modulations can be observed in children and older adults but seem to break down when WM load is high. In addition, older adults are more entrained by external stimulation what may increase a need for inhibitory control during later processing. We conclude that differences in inhibitory control processes and information uptake as reflected in amplitude modulations and inter-trial phase stability of alpha rhythms interactively determine WM constraints across the lifespan.

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2010

Schools for All Kinds of Minds

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Changes in the capacity of visual working memory in 5- to 10-year-olds

Cited by 139 publications

References 16 publications

Models provide specificity: Testing a proposed mechanism of visual working memory capacity development

Models provide specificity: Testing a proposed mechanism of visual working memory capacity development

Amplitude modulations and inter-trial phase stability of alpha-oscillations differentially reflect working memory constraints across the lifespan

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