Effects of impoverished environmental conditions on working memory performance

This cross-cultural study investigates the impact of background experience on four verbal and visuo-spatial working memory (WM) tasks. A total of 84 children from low-income families were recruited from the following groups: (1) Portuguese immigrant children from Luxembourg impoverished in terms of language experience; (2) Brazilian children deprived in terms of scholastic background; (3) Portuguese children from Portugal with no disadvantage in either scholastic or language background. Children were matched on age, gender, fluid intelligence, and socioeconomic status and completed four simple and complex span tasks of WM and a vocabulary measure. Results indicate that, despite large differences in their backgrounds and language abilities, the groups exhibited comparable performance on the visuo-spatial tasks dot matrix and odd-one-out and on the verbal simple span task digit recall. Group differences emerged on the verbal complex span task counting recall with children from Luxembourg and Portugal outperforming children from disadvantaged schools in Brazil. The study suggests that whereas contributions of prior knowledge to digit span, dot matrix, and odd-one-out are likely to be minimal, background experience can affect performance on counting recall. Implications for testing WM capacity in children growing up in poverty are discussed.     

The computerized continuous performance task: A new measure of inattention

Attentional performance was measured using a computerized continuous performance task, several psychometric tasks, and ratings of classroom behavior. Subjects were 51 children in the inpatient and day hospital programs of a psychiatric hospital. The relationship between performance on the computerized task and all other measures was examined. Results indicated that the continuous performance task significantly correlated with several other psychometric measures of inattention, ratings of inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. The CPT had slightly better sensitivity and the same specificity as the Conners Teacher Rating Scale in identifying Conduct and Attention Deficit Disordered children. Implications for the use of the computerized continuous performance task as a screening measure for attentional difficulties is discussed.     

Relating children's attentional capabilities to intelligence, memory, and academic achievement: a test of construct specificity in children with asthma.

The relationship between attention, intelligence, memory, achievement, and behavior in a large population (N = 939) of children without neuropsychologic problems was investigated in children with mild and moderate asthma. It was hypothesized that different levels of children's attentional capabilities would be associated with different levels of intellectual, memory, and academic abilities. Children ages 6-12 at the eight clinical centers of the Childhood Asthma Management Program (CAMP) were enrolled in this study. Standardized measures of child neuropsychological and behavioral performance were administered to all participants, with analyses examining both the developmental trajectory of child attentional capabilities and the associations between Continuous Performance Test (CPT) scores and intellectual functioning, and measures of memory, academic achievement, and behavioral functioning. Findings demonstrated that correct responses on the CPT increase significantly with age, while commission errors decrease significantly with age. Performance levels on the CPT were associated with differences in child intellectual function, memory, and academic achievement. Overall these findings reveal how impairments in child attention skills were associated with normal levels of performance on measures of children's intelligence, memory, academic achievement, and behavioral functioning, suggesting that CPT performance is a salient marker of brain function.     

A psychometric comparison of anxiety-relevant attention measures

Background and Objectives: Preferential attention to threat, emotional response inhibition, and attentional control each purportedly play a key role in anxiety disorders. Divergent psychometric properties among attention measures may produce differential detection of anxiety-related associations and treatment-related changes. However, no studies have directly compared the psychometric properties of these attention measures in the same sample.

Design: Eighty-five young adults (M?=?19.41 years, SD?=?1.47, 48 Females) completed a cognitive task battery and a subset of 60 participants (M?=?19.42 years, SD?=?1.48, 33 Females) completed the task battery again approximately two weeks later.

Method: To assess preferential attention to threat, emotional response inhibition, and attentional control, the cognitive task battery included a dot-probe task, emotion and gender Stroop tasks, and a flanker task. Tasks varied in how attention was directed and if emotional stimuli were included. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability were compared across measures.

Results: Within the same sample, internal consistency and reliability differed across attention measures. Explicit attention measures (emotional Stroop and flanker) exhibited stronger internal consistency and greater test-retest reliability compared to implicit measures (dot-probe and gender Stroop).

Conclusions: These results inform clinical research using attention measures to assess anxiety-related differences and treatment response.     

Synesthesia and creativity in fine arts students: An Empirical Look

Abstract:

A survey of 358 fine arts students at three large universities indicated that 23% (84) experienced synesthesia in a spontaneous and consistent manner, and 49% (175) reported no such experience. From this subject pool, 61 synesthetes and 61 controls, equated on gender, major, year in school, and verbal intelligence, received a battery of four creativity measures. The synesthetes scored significantly higher than controls on all four creativity measures; and their self‐rated frequency and vividness of synesthesia though significantly intercorrelated, correlated marginally with the measures of creativity. The results are consistent with anecdotal reports that synesthetes are often involved in musical and artistic fields, and possessive of a high degree of creativity.     

Attentional WM is not necessarily specifically related with fluid intelligence: the case of smart children with ADHD symptoms

Executive functions and, in particular, Attentional (active) Working Memory (WM) have been associated with fluid intelligence. The association contrasts with the hypothesis that children with ADHD exhibit problems with WM tasks requiring controlled attention and may have a good fluid intelligence. This paper examines whether children who are intelligent but present ADHD symptoms fail in attentional WM tasks. The latter result would be problematic for theories assuming the generality of a strict relationship between intelligence and WM. To study these issues, a battery of tests was administered to a group of 58 children who all displayed symptoms of ADHD. All children were between the age of 8 and 11 years, and were described by their teachers as smart. Children were compared to a control group matched for age, schooling, and gender. The battery included a test of fluid intelligence (Raven’s Coloured Matrices), and a series of visuospatial WM tasks. Results showed that children with ADHD were high in intelligence but significantly lower than the controls in WM tasks requiring high attentional control, whereas there was no difference in WM tasks requiring low attentional control. Furthermore, only high attentional control WM tasks were significantly related to Raven’s performance in the control group, whereas all WM tasks were similarly related in the ADHD group. It is concluded that performance in high attentional control WM tasks may be related to fluid intelligence, but also to a specific control component that is independent of intelligence and is poor in children with ADHD.     

Verbal deficits in children with 47, XXY and 47, XXX karyotypes: A descriptive and experimental study

This study examines the intellectual abilities of children with a supernumerary X chromosome complement. In the first part, 33 boys and 13 girls, who were ascertained through a neonatal screening project, were given a WISC-R. Comparisons with siblings revealed a significant deficit in the verbal ability of the extra X children while their nonverbal skills were normal. The second part investigated the specific verbal impairments of these children with a sentence verification task. The results of comparisons with normal children indicated poorer performance by the supernumerary X groups, particularly on the more difficult task items. Correlations between measures indicated that verbal IQ was more strongly related to sentence verification performance than performance IQ. The final section deals with some of the biological factors that may contribute to the verbal deficits in these children. The results indicate that the most verbally impaired children were those with the greatest delays in physical growth, as indicated by bone age and dermatoglyphic measures. These findings are discussed in terms of the influence of chromosomally determined growth rates upon the brain, its maturity, and consequent capacity to develop specific cognitive functions.     

Gender differences on the WPPSI, the WISC-R, and the WPPSI-R

The WPPSI, WISC-R, and WPPSI-R were administered in a counterbalanced design to 72 children between the ages of 5 years, 10 months, 16 days, and 6 years, 7 months, and 15 days to test the hypothesis that mean verbal IQs on these scales would be higher for boys than for girls. Results indicated that the mean verbal IQs for boys were significantly (p<.05) higher than those for girls on all three scales. Also, significant (p<.05) differences favoring boys were found onVocabulary andComprehension subtests on all three scales. These differences are probably a peculiarity of these scales and may not need any elaborate theoretical explanation. However, clinical uses of verbal and performance IQ discrepancies may not justifiably ignore the examinees’ gender.     

Gender differences on the WPPSI,the WISC-R,and the WPPSI-R

The WPPSI, WISC-R, and WPPSI-R were administered in a counterbalanced design to 72 children between the ages of 5 years, 10 months, 16 days, and 6 years, 7 months, and 15 days to test the hypothesis that mean verbal IQs on these scales would be higher for boys than for girls. Results indicated that the mean verbal IQs for boys were significantly (p<.05) higher than those for girls on all three scales. Also, significant (p<.05) differences favoring boys were found onVocabulary andComprehension subtests on all three scales. These differences are probably a peculiarity of these scales and may not need any elaborate theoretical explanation. However, clinical uses of verbal and performance IQ discrepancies may not justifiably ignore the examinees’ gender.     

A developmental deficit in short-term phonological memory: Implications for language and reading

Abstract

QU, an eight-year-old boy, was identified from a large scale normative study on the basis of his greatly reduced digit span, combined with normal long-term memory and non-verbal intelligence. Further investigation indicated that his visual STM was normal, but that he was clearly impaired on two verbal STM tests, nonword repetition, and memory span for words. His span showed clear effects of phonological similarity and word-length, suggesting qualitatively normal functioning of the phonological loop component of working memory, despite a quantitative impairment in level of performance. This pattern resembles that found in an earlier study of children with a specific language disorder. We tested QU on measures of vocabulary, syntax, and reading, and found him to be substantially below the age norms on all three. The implications of these findings are discussed for the role of the phonological loop in language development.     

Bilingual experience and executive functioning in young children

Advanced inhibitory control skills have been found in bilingual speakers as compared to monolingual controls (Bialystok, 1999). We examined whether this effect is generalized to an unstudied language group (Spanish-English bilingual) and multiple measures of executive function by administering a battery of tasks to 50 kindergarten children drawn from three language groups: native bilinguals, monolinguals (English), and English speakers enrolled in second-language immersion kindergarten. Despite having significantly lower verbal scores and parent education/income level, Spanish-English bilingual children's raw scores did not differ from their peers. After statistically controlling for these factors and age, native bilingual children performed significantly better on the executive function battery than both other groups. Importantly, the relative advantage was significant for tasks that appear to call for managing conflicting attentional demands (Conflict tasks); there was no advantage on impulse-control (Delay tasks). These results advance our understanding of both the generalizability and specificity of the compensatory effects of bilingual experience for children's cognitive development.     

Effects of experimenter and mother presence on the attentional performance and activity of hyperactive boys

The attentional performance, activity, and off-task behavior of hyperactive boys with and without conduct problems and normal boys were compared on a cancellation task under three conditions: when performing the task alone, with mother present, and with experimenter present. Results indicated that both the hyperactive groups achieved poorer attentional scores than normal subjects in the alone and mother present conditions, but improved in the experimenter present condition. The performance of the hyperactive boys with conduct problems was particularly affected by this condition. The activity and off-task behavior scores of both the hyperactive groups were higher than controls in all conditions, although the hyperactive boys with conduct problems decreased in off-task behavior when the experimenter was present. Attention and behavior scores were not significantly correlated. The implications of these findings for assessment of hyperactivity, and the role of noncompliance in the attentional behavior of hyperactive children, are discussed.This study is based in part on the first author's Ph.D. thesis in the Department of Psychology, University of Melbourne.     

Individual and age-related differences in children’s working memory

The purpose of this study was to investigate the degree to which age-related and individual differences in children’s working memory (WM) are due to a general or task-specific capacity system. Experiment 1 correlated children’s (N=146; age range 5–19 years) verbal and visual-spatial working memory performance with various intelligence and achievement measures. The results supporting a general system were that (1) visual-spatial and verbal WM measures were significantly intercorrelated with and without age partialed out and (2) both verbal and visual-spatial WM measures were significantly correlated with diverse achievement and intelligence measures. Experiment 2 compared three age groups (N=192; 7-, 10-, and 13-year-olds) on working-memory performance tasks under initial, enhanced (cued), and maintenance conditions. The results supporting a general capacity system were that (1) age-related performance differences in WM were found on all conditions and not isolated to specific processes, (2) the maintenance measures (high-load condition) predicted the variance better in age-related performance than process measures, and (3) although individual differences in WM performance reflected two independent operations, these operations produced similar correlations to achievement within age groups. Overall, the results support a general capacity explanation of age-related and individual differences in children’s WM performance.     

III. WISC-R scatter indices: Useful information for differential diagnosis?

This study analyzed the WISC-R verbal-performance, full scale IQ, verbal IQ, and performance IQ scatter indices of 101 verified special education students. The results indicated that none of these measures discriminated among emotionally disturbed, learning disabled, minimally brain injured, and educable mentally retarded children. These scatter indices were also compared with analogous data collected from a nationwide, representative sample of normal children (Kaufman, 1976a, 1976b). Statistically significant differences were obtained between the two groups on verbal-performance, full scale IQ, and performance IQ scatter dimensions. Further analyses revealed, however, that 40% of the normal children exhibited as much or more scatter than the average special education student on each of these three scatter indices. There were no significant differences between the two groups on the verbal IQ scatter index. The results are discussed in terms of the limited utility of WISC-R scatter indices for the purpose of differential diagnosis.     

What are the Causes of the Attention Deficits Observed in Children with Dyslexia?

Dyslexic children often show attention problems at school, but it is not clear the nature of their impairments. The aim of this study was to analyze whether verbal processing artefacts could mediate attention deficits. Forty-seven children (22 dyslexics and 25 controls), aged between 7 to 12, were assessed through an ADHD rating scale and a battery of tasks tapping different attentional processes (selective, sustained, executive, and orienting). Phonological measures were used as covariates. Children with dyslexia showed attentional impairments (using both rating scales and neuropsychological tasks); however their performance was significantly affected by phonological performance. In conclusion, dyslexics may be inattentive at school because they are slow processors, in particular when they are presented with verbal stimuli.     

Short-term memory, executive control, and children's route learning

The aim of this study was to investigate route-learning ability in 67 children aged 5 to 11years and to relate route-learning performance to the components of Baddeley's model of working memory. Children carried out tasks that included measures of verbal and visuospatial short-term memory and executive control and also measures of verbal and visuospatial long-term memory; the route-learning task was conducted using a maze in a virtual environment. In contrast to previous research, correlations were found between both visuospatial and verbal memory tasks-the Corsi task, short-term pattern span, digit span, and visuospatial long-term memory-and route-learning performance. However, further analyses indicated that these relationships were mediated by executive control demands that were common to the tasks, with long-term memory explaining additional unique variance in route learning.     

The relationship between visual attention and expertise in sports

ObjectivesGiven the prevalence of misperception and failed perception, particularly in attention-demanding team sports, surprisingly few studies have explored whether experts in team sports differ from other athletes and from non-athletes in their basic attention abilities.MethodIn this study, we examined group differences between experts in team handball (n = 40), athletes from non-team sports (n = 40), and novice athletes (n = 40) using a battery of three attention tasks: a functional field of view task, a multiple-object tracking task, and an inattentional blindness task.ResultsPerformance on the three attention tasks was largely independent, with no significant correlations among the tasks. Team sports experts showed no better performance on the basic attention tasks than did athletes from non-teams sports or novice athletes.ConclusionsThe finding that all basic attention tasks are largely independent provides preliminary support for the idea that attentional breadth, tracking performance, and inattentional blindness are distinct attentional processes. Our results demonstrate that sports expertise effects are unrelated to basic differences in attention—expertise does not appear to produce differences in basic attention and basic differences in attention do not appear to predict eventual expertise. Further experiments could focus on the ways in which more specific attentional strategies and processes contribute to sports performance.     

Time estimation in Alzheimer's disease and the role of the central executive

The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of short-term memory and attention in time estimation. For this purpose we studied prospective time verbal estimation in 21 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), and compared their performance with that of 21 matched normal controls in two different conditions: during a digit span task and during an attentional task. Results showed that the performance of AD patients was significantly worse than that of the controls; the interaction between group and condition was significant. We suggest a role of attentional-executive functions in prospective time estimation.     

Susceptibility of spatial and verbal working memory to demands of the central executive

We used a dual-task paradigm to examine the degree to which domain-specific spatial and verbal subsystems depend on the domain-general central executive. Forty participants were asked to retain spatial or verbal information while performing a concurrent secondary task related to simple arithmetic. The secondary tasks consisted of three cognitive processes: single-digit addition, a digit-carrying operation, and digit reading. The single-digit addition and carry operation include central executive functioning, while digit reading relies solely on the phonological loop. The single-digit addition caused a performance decrement on the spatial working memory task, while the digit reading impaired performance on the verbal working memory task. The carry operation interfered with recall accuracy on both working memory tasks. The spatial working memory task was significantly correlated with the verbal working memory task only when the secondary task was more demanding on the central executive. Our results suggest that spatial working memory rather than verbal working memory is susceptible to failure of central executive functioning and that the central executive plays an important role in regulating the cognitive demands of different domains.