The impact of memory load and perceptual cues on puzzle learning by 24‐month olds

Abstract

Early childhood is characterized by memory capacity limitations and rapid perceptual and motor development [Rovee-Collier (1996). Infant Behavior & Development, 19, 385-400]. The present study examined 2-year olds' reproduction of a sliding action to complete an abstract fish puzzle under different levels of memory load and perceptual feature support. Experimental groups were compared to baseline controls to assess spontaneous rates of production of the target actions; baseline production was low across all experiments. Memory load was manipulated in Exp. 1 by adding pieces to the puzzle, increasing sequence length from 2 to 3 items, and to 3 items plus a distractor. Although memory load did not influence how toddlers learned to manipulate the puzzle pieces, it did influence toddlers' achievement of the goal-constructing the fish. Overall, girls were better at constructing the puzzle than boys. In Exp. 2, the perceptual features of the puzzle were altered by changing shape boundaries to create a two-piece horizontally cut puzzle (displaying bilateral symmetry), and by adding a semantically supportive context to the vertically cut puzzle (iconic). Toddlers were able to achieve the goal of building the fish equally well across the 2-item puzzle types (bilateral symmetry, vertical, iconic), but how they learned to manipulate the puzzle pieces varied as a function of the perceptual features. Here, as in Exp. 1, girls showed a different pattern of performance from the boys. This study demonstrates that changes in memory capacity and perceptual processing influence both goal-directed imitation learning and motoric performance.

Understanding the Transfer Deficit: Contextual Mismatch, Proactive Interference, and Working Memory Affect Toddlers’ Video‐Based Transfer

“…According to the representational flexibility account, increasing contextual differences between encoding and retrieval contexts will increase cognitive load, thereby taxing toddler's limited WM (Barr et al., ; Zack et al., ). Thus, WM should predict object‐retrieval performance, particularly in the more cognitively demanding mismatch condition.…”

“…Both accounts of the transfer deficit—representational flexibility and graded representations—may explain age‐related increases in transfer, insofar as both representational flexibility (Barr, ; Barr et al., ) and memory updating (Troseth, ) rely on WM. WM entails the ability to maintain and update information for future actions, making it an important aspect of cognitive control that helps guide thoughts and behaviors in a goal‐directed manner (Carlson, Zelazo, & Faja, ; Morasch, Raj, & Bell, ).…”

“…Regarding symbol‐mediated learning, scholars have suggested that age‐related increases in WM capacity help young children to overcome the burden created by contextual mismatch (Barr, ; Barr et al., ) and proactive interference (Troseth, ). Indeed, individual variability in WM was found to predict transfer from a model room to its real‐world referent in children between 33 and 39 months of age (Hartstein & Berthier, ), providing one example of a scenario in which WM helped young children overcome contextual mismatch to generalize across contexts.…”

“…However, the two accounts differ in their predicted sources of cognitive load. According to the representational flexibility account, reducing contextual mismatch would decrease cognitive load (Barr et al., ; Zack et al., ); thus, search performance would be better in the match condition than in the mismatch condition, particularly for children with relatively low WM. In addition, the graded representations account posits that cognitive load is created by proactive interference from outdated representations (Munakata, ; Troseth, ); thus, search performance would decrease across search trials, particularly for children with relatively low WM.…”

How self‐generated labelling shapes transfer of learning during early childhood: The role of individual differences

“…The puzzle imitation task was developed to examine factors affecting transfer of learning from screen media. This task involved construction of a 3‐piece magnetic or virtual puzzle that formed either a ‘fish’ or a ‘boat’ (Barr et al ., ; Dickerson et al ., ; Moser et al ., ; Zimmermann et al ., , ; for review see Hipp et al ., ). Across different studies, this puzzle task has been demonstrated for 2‐ to 3‐year‐olds via video, on a touchscreen with 2D virtual puzzle pieces, and on a magnet board using 3D magnet pieces.…”