The development of organized visual search

Visual search plays an important role in guiding behavior. Children have more difficulty performing conjunction search tasks than adults. The present research evaluates whether developmental differences in children's ability to organize serial visual search (i.e., search organization skills) contribute to performance limitations in a typical conjunction search task. We evaluated 134 children between the ages of 2 and 17 on separate tasks measuring search for targets defined by a conjunction of features or by distinct features. Our results demonstrated that children organize their visual search better as they get older. As children's skills at organizing visual search improve they become more accurate at locating targets with conjunction of features amongst distractors, but not for targets with distinct features. Developmental limitations in children's abilities to organize their visual search of the environment are an important component of poor conjunction search in young children. In addition, our findings provide preliminary evidence that, like other visuospatial tasks, exposure to reading may influence children's spatial orientation to the visual environment when performing a visual search.     

Mother-Child Conversation Styles and Children's Laboratory Memory for Narrative and Nonnarrative Materials

The study reported here was designed to examine influences of mothers' early conversational styles on children's episodic memory for events experienced outside of the mother-child relationship. Fifty-three 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children participated in picture-book interaction tasks with their mothers and with an unfamiliar investigator. Conversational messages were coded for their narrative and paradigmatic content. The children were also administered cued- and free-recall laboratory tasks for object names, object locations, animal facts, and story narratives. Reliable correlations were found between mothers' and children's levels of narrative talk in the mother-child picture-book task and between children's levels of narrative talk with mother and with an unfamiliar investigator. Recall analyses showed that the younger children's levels of narrative talk during picture-book tasks with mothers were positively related to the children's laboratory recall for story materials, unrelated to laboratory recall of object names and animal facts, and negatively related to laboratory recall for the spatial locations of objects. Connections between conversation styles and recall proficiency were less apparent and not reliable for the 5- and 6-year-old children in the sample. Differences between these age effects and those found in research on children's autobiographical memory are discussed.     

Executive and visuospatial sketchpad resources in euthymic bipolar disorder: Implications for visuospatial working memory architecture

Visuospatial working memory theory is used to interpret the cognitive impairment in euthymic bipolar disorder. Such patients show deficits in the Corsi Blocks Test (CBT) and executive control. To understand these deficits, 20 euthymic bipolar patients and controls were administered the CBT, Visual Patterns Test (VPT), and a new visual memory task designed to make minimal demands on executive resources. Initial analyses validated the visual memory task and implicated executive involvement in the CBT and VPT. Subsequent analyses on a number of tests confirmed CBT and executive deficits while performance was normal on the VPT and visual memory test. ANCOVA indicated that impaired executive function underpinned patients' CBT performance. Implications for the interface between executive and slave systems of working memory are discussed.     

Development of memory for pattern and path: Further evidence for the fractionation of visuo-spatial memory

Evidence from a number of sources now suggests that the visuo-spatial sketchpad (VSSP) of working memory may be composed of two subsystems: one for maintaining visual information and the other for spatial information. In this paper we present three experiments that examine this fractionation using a developmental approach. In Experiment 1, 5-, 8-, and 10-year old children were presented with a visuo-spatial working memory task (the matrices task) with two presentation formats (static and dynamic). A developmental dissociation in performance was found for the static and dynamic conditions of both tasks, suggesting that the activation of separable subsystems of the VSSP is dependent upon a static/dynamic distinction in information content rather than a visual/spatial one. A highly similar pattern of performance was found for a mazes task with static and dynamic formats. However, one strategic activity, the use of simple verbal recoding, may also have been responsible for the observed pattern of performance in the matrices task. In Experiments 2 and 3 this was investigated using concurrent articulatory suppression. No evidence to support this notion was found, and it is therefore proposed that static and dynamic visuo-spatial information is maintained in working memory by separable subcomponents of the VSSP.     

Contributions of linguistic,quantitative, and spatial attention skills to young children's math versus reading: Same,different, or both?

The study used Bayesian and Frequentist methods to investigate whether the roles of linguistic, quantitative, and spatial attention skills are distinct in children's acquisition of reading and math. A sample of 175 Chinese kindergarteners was tested with measures of linguistic skills (phonological awareness and phonological memory), quantitative knowledge (number line task, symbolic digit comparison, and non-symbolic number estimation), spatial attention skills (visual span, mental rotation, and visual search), word reading, and calculation. After statistically controlling for age and nonverbal intelligence, phonological awareness and digit comparison performance explained unique variance in both math and reading. Moreover, number line estimation was specifically important for math, while phonological memory was specifically essential for reading. These findings highlight the possibility of developing early screening tools with different cognitive measures for children at risk of learning disabilities in reading and/or math.     

Adults' beliefs about children and mathematics: how important is it and how do children learn about it?

A series of studies was conducted which focused on US adults' beliefs about the relative importance of acquiring mathematical skills for preschool children and about how children acquire these skills. In Study 1, adults rated general information, reading and social skills as all being more important than mathematical skills. They also claimed that parents have the most influence on preschool children's learning regardless of content area. In Study 2, the parents of kindergarten children also rated reading, general information and social skills as all being more important than mathematics in preparing children for the first grade. The more important parents felt mathematics were, the more they reported engaging in a variety of mathematical-related activities with their children. However, the importance they placed on mathematics was not related to their child's actual mathematical performance. In summary, adults seem to value mathematics less than other skills in preparing young children to enter elementary school. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Validating the Electric Maze Task as a Measure of Planning

The Electric Maze Task (EMT) is a novel planning task designed to allow flexible testing of planning abilities across a broad age range and to incorporate manipulations to test underlying planning abilities, such as working-memory and inhibitory control skills. The EMT was tested in a group of 63 typically developing 7- to 12-year-olds. Participants completed 4 mazes designed to alter working-memory demands (by increasing the number of steps required from 6 to 8) and inhibitory control demands (by using a modified Dimensional Change Card Sort task) and 3 standardized measures using the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery. The EMT was found to correlate with measures of visual memory, working memory, and planning. The 6-step mazes were simpler for participants to solve and mapped on to performance on the visual memory task. The 8-step mazes were more difficult and mapped on to performance on the spatial working-memory and planning tasks. Children who were 10 to 12 years old were also better than 7- to 9-year-olds at solving all mazes, as evidenced by fewer errors and fewer errors later in solving the mazes. Younger children also struggled more than older children after a rule switch. Performance on the maze task differentiated 7- to 12-year-old children with better planning skills, and manipulations of the maze task were successful in altering the working-memory and inhibitory control demands.     

The roles of different executive functioning skills in young children’s mental computation and applied mathematical problem-solving

This study investigated the relationships of four executive functioning skills (including verbal working memory, spatial working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility) with young children’s mental computation and applied mathematical problem-solving. Two hundred and twenty-five Chinese kindergarteners were tested with a battery of general cognitive, executive functioning and mathematics skills. Results showed that when children’s age, gender, non-verbal intelligence, and listening comprehension skills were controlled, verbal working memory and cognitive flexibility were significant correlates of mental computation, whereas verbal working memory, spatial working memory, and cognitive flexibility were significant correlates of applied mathematical problem-solving. Inhibitory control was not significantly associated with the two domains of mathematics under investigation. The findings highlight the differential roles of different executive functioning skills in early mathematical skills and offer practical implication for helping young children in learning complex mathematical skills.     

Performance prediction in young children: Effects of skill,metacognition and wishful thinking

Research on children's performance expectations has repeatedly shown that preschoolers and kindergarten children typically overestimate their own performance across a wide range of contexts. In this study, two experiments were carried out with 4- and 6-year-old children to assess the impact of familiarity with the task, memory monitoring, and wishful thinking on children's performance predictions. Results showed that overpredictions were rather due to wishful thinking than to poor metacognition, and that overpredictions were more frequent in unfamiliar as compared to familiar task settings.     

The developmental relations between spatial cognition and mathematics in primary school children

Spatial thinking is an important predictor of mathematics. However, existing data do not determine whether all spatial sub‐domains are equally important for mathematics outcomes nor whether mathematics–spatial associations vary through development. This study addresses these questions by exploring the developmental relations between mathematics and spatial skills in children aged 6–10 years (N = 155). We extend previous findings by assessing and comparing performance across Uttal et al.'s (2013), four spatial sub‐domains. Overall spatial skills explained 5%–14% of the variation across three mathematics performance measures (standardized mathematics skills, approximate number sense and number line estimation skills), beyond other known predictors of mathematics including vocabulary and gender. Spatial scaling (extrinsic‐static sub‐domain) was a significant predictor of all mathematics outcomes, across all ages, highlighting its importance for mathematics in middle childhood. Other spatial sub‐domains were differentially associated with mathematics in a task‐ and age‐dependent manner. Mental rotation (intrinsic‐dynamic skills) was a significant predictor of mathematics at 6 and 7 years only which suggests that at approximately 8 years of age there is a transition period regarding the spatial skills that are important for mathematics. Taken together, the results support the investigation of spatial training, particularly targeting spatial scaling, as a means of improving both spatial and mathematical thinking.     

On the relationship between children's perspective taking in complex scenes and their spatial drawing ability

Depicting space and volume in drawings is challenging for young children in particular. It has been assumed that several cognitive skills may contribute to children's drawing. In the present study, we investigated the relationship between perspective‐taking skills in complex scenes and the spatial characteristics in drawings of 5‐ to 9‐year‐olds (N= 121). Perspective taking was assessed by two tasks: (a) a visual task similar to the three‐mountains task, in which the children had to select a three‐dimensional model that showed the view on a scene from particular perspective and (b) a spatial construction task, in which children had to plastically reconstruct a three‐dimensional scene as it would appear from a new point of view. In the drawing task, the children were asked to depict a three‐dimensional scene exactly as it looked like from their own point of view. Several spatial features in the drawings were coded. The results suggested that children's spatial drawing and their perspective‐taking skills were related. The axes system and the spatial relations between objects in the drawings in particular were predicted, beyond age, by certain measures of the two perspective‐taking tasks. The results are discussed in the light of particular demands that might underlay both perspective taking and spatial drawing.     

Task experience and children's working memory performance: a perspective from recall timing

Working memory is an important theoretical construct among children, and measures of its capacity predict a range of cognitive skills and abilities. Data from 9- and 11-year-old children illustrate how a chronometric analysis of recall can complement and elaborate recall accuracy in advancing our understanding of working memory. A reading span task was completed by 130 children, 75 of whom were tested on 2 occasions, with sequence length either increasing or decreasing during test administration. Substantial pauses occur during participants' recall sequences, and they represent consistent performance traits over time, while also varying with recall circumstances and task history. Recall pauses help to predict reading and number skills, alongside as well as separate from levels of recall accuracy. The task demands of working memory change as a function of task experience, with a combination of accuracy and response timing in novel task situations being the strongest predictor of cognitive attainment.     

The role of planning in different mathematical skills

Despite the fact that planning has been found to be a significant predictor of reading (particularly of reading comprehension), much less is known about its contribution to mathematics. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of two levels of planning (operation planning and action planning) in three mathematical skills (calculation fluency, math problem-solving, and math reasoning). Eighty Grade 2 children from Shanghai, China were assessed on measures of nonverbal cognitive ability (nonverbal matrices), working memory (digit span backwards and N-back), operation planning (matching numbers, planned codes, and planned search), action planning (crack the code), and mathematics (calculation fluency, math problem-solving, and math reasoning). The results of regression analyses showed that both levels of planning accounted for unique variance in mathematics over and above the effects of nonverbal cognitive ability and working memory. The effects of action planning were particularly strong in math problem-solving. These findings suggest that measures of planning could be used along with measures of working memory to detect children at-risk for mathematics disabilities and that intervention programmes targeting planning could be developed to boost children's mathematics performance.     

Is conditional reasoning related to mathematical problem solving?

The current study aimed to investigate the relation between conditional reasoning, which is a common type of logical reasoning, and children's mathematical problem solving. A sample of 124 fourth graders was tested for their conditional reasoning skills and their mathematical problem solving skills, as well as a list of control variables (e.g., IQ, working memory, reading) and potential mediators (number sentence construction and computation). The children's ability to make modus ponens (MP) inferences significantly predicted their mathematical problem solving skills, even after controlling for the potential confounding variables. The relation was mediated by the number sentence construction skills. The findings, in addition to supporting the link between conditional reasoning and mathematics, further indicate that the ability to process relations may be the mechanism underlying the relation. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Perceptual and academic patterns of learning-disabled/gifted students.

This research explored ways gifted children with learning disabilities perceive and recall auditory and visual input and apply this information to reading, mathematics, and spelling. 24 learning-disabled/gifted children and a matched control group of normally achieving gifted students were tested for oral reading, word recognition and analysis, listening comprehension, and spelling. In mathematics, they were tested for numeration, mental and written computation, word problems, and numerical reasoning. To explore perception and memory skills, students were administered formal tests of visual and auditory memory as well as auditory discrimination of sounds. Their responses to reading and to mathematical computations were further considered for evidence of problems in visual discrimination, visual sequencing, and visual spatial areas. Analyses indicated that these learning-disabled/gifted students were significantly weaker than controls in their decoding skills, in spelling, and in most areas of mathematics. They were also significantly weaker in auditory discrimination and memory, and in visual discrimination, sequencing, and spatial abilities. Conclusions are that these underlying perceptual and memory deficits may be related to students' academic problems.     

The contribution of logical reasoning to the learning of mathematics in primary school

It has often been claimed that children's mathematical understanding is based on their ability to reason logically, but there is no good evidence for this causal link. We tested the causal hypothesis about logic and mathematical development in two related studies. In a longitudinal study, we showed that (a) 6‐year‐old children's logical abilities and their working memory predict mathematical achievement 16 months later; and (b) logical scores continued to predict mathematical levels after controls for working memory, whereas working memory scores failed to predict the same measure after controls for differences in logical ability. In our second study, we trained a group of children in logical reasoning and found that they made more progress in mathematics than a control group who were not given this training. These studies establish a causal link between logical reasoning and mathematical learning. Much of children's mathematical knowledge is based on their understanding of its underlying logic.     

A Longitudinal Assessment of Executive Function Skills and Their Association with Math Performance

The present study was designed to examine both concurrent and predictive associations between scores on a measure of executive function (EF) skills, the Contingency Naming Test (CNT), during the early school-age years. A secondary aim of the study was to examine the association between EF skills and mathematics performance. We administered tests of mathematics ability, and the CNT, to 178 children at ages 6 to 7, 8 to 9, and 10 to 11 years. From the CNT we obtained measures of response fluency/efficiency, working memory, and inhibition. The results demonstrate main effects of age on all CNT measures of EF, as anticipated, and inconsistent main effects of gender or mathematics learning disability status. Rates of improvement in EF varied as a function of the working memory demands present during a given task. There were differences in concurrent and predictive correlations for different CNT performance measures. EF scores obtained during the first assessment were as strongly associated with each other as they were with EF scores obtained four years later, suggesting a moderately stable source of individual differences on cognitive performance. EF scores at age 6 to 7 years were associated with concurrent and later mathematics scores, and most of these correlations were stronger than the significant associations found between response fluency on a baseline task (with no working memory demand) and mathematics performance. These findings have implications for the stability of EF skills during the school-age years, and the role of EF in early and later elementary school mathematics performance.     

A longitudinal assessment of executive function skills and their association with math performance.

The present study was designed to examine both concurrent and predictive associations between scores on a measure of executive function (EF) skills, the Contingency Naming Test (CNT), during the early school-age years. A secondary aim of the study was to examine the association between EF skills and mathematics performance. We administered tests of mathematics ability, and the CNT, to 178 children at ages 6 to 7, 8 to 9, and 10 to 11 years. From the CNT we obtained measures of response fluency/efficiency, working memory, and inhibition. The results demonstrate main effects of age on all CNT measures of EF, as anticipated, and inconsistent main effects of gender or mathematics learning disability status. Rates of improvement in EF varied as a function of the working memory demands present during a given task. There were differences in concurrent and predictive correlations for different CNT performance measures. EF scores obtained during the first assessment were as strongly associated with each other as they were with EF scores obtained four years later, suggesting a moderately stable source of individual differences on cognitive performance. EF scores at age 6 to 7 years were associated with concurrent and later mathematics scores, and most of these correlations were stronger than the significant associations found between response fluency on a baseline task (with no working memory demand) and mathematics performance. These findings have implications for the stability of EF skills during the school-age years, and the role of EF in early and later elementary school mathematics performance.     

Working memory skills and educational attainment: evidence from national curriculum assessments at 7 and 14 years of age

The relationship between working memory skills and performance on national curriculum assessments in English, mathematics and science was explored in groups of children aged 7 and 14 years. At 7 years, children's levels of attainment in both English and mathematics were significantly associated with working memory scores, and in particular with performance on complex span tasks. At 14 years, strong links persisted between the complex working memory test scores and attainments levels in both mathematics and science, although ability in the English assessments showed no strong association with working memory skill. The results suggest that the intellectual operations required in the curriculum areas of mathematics and science are constrained by the general capacity of working memory across the childhood years. However, whereas success in the acquisition in literacy (tapped by the English assessments at the youngest age) was also linked with working memory capacity, achievements in the higher‐level skills of comprehension and analysis of English literature assessed at 14 years were independent of working memory capacity. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Developmental dynamics between mathematical performance,task motivation,and teachers' goals during the transition to primary school

Background. It has been suggested that children's learning motivation and interest in a particular subject play an important role in their school performance, particularly in mathematics. However, few cross‐lagged longitudinal studies have been carried out to investigate the prospective relationships between academic achievement and task motivation. Moreover, the role that the classroom context plays in this development is largely unknown. Aims. The aim of the study was to investigate the developmental dynamics of maths‐related motivation and mathematical performance during children's transition to primary school. The role of teachers' pedagogical goals and classroom characteristics on this development was also investigated. Sample. A total of 196 Finnish children were examined four times: (0) in October during their preschool year; (1) in October and (2) April during their first grade of primary school; and (3) in October during their second grade. Method. Children's mathematical performance was tested at each measurement point. Task motivation was examined at measurement points 2, 3, and 4 using the Task‐value scale for children. First‐grade teachers were interviewed in November about their pedagogical goals and classroom characteristics. Results and conclusions. The results showed that children's mathematical performance and related task motivation formed a cumulative developmental cycle: a high level of maths performance at the beginning of the first grade increased subsequent task motivation towards mathematics, which further predicted a high level of maths performance at the beginning of the second grade. The level of maths‐related task motivation increased in those classrooms where the teachers emphasized motivation or self‐concept development as their most important pedagogical goal.