The involvement of working memory in children's exact and approximate mental addition

The involvement of working memory (WM) was examined in two types of mental calculation tasks: exact and approximate. Specifically, children attending Grades 3 and 4 of primary school were involved in three experiments that examined the role of verbal and visuospatial WM in solving addition problems presented in vertical or horizontal format. For Experiment 1, the children were required to solve addition problems with carrying. For Experiment 2, they were required to solve addition problems without carrying. Then, for Experiment 3, the children needed to solve approximate problems with and without carrying. Results confirmed that different WM components are involved in solving mental addition problems. In Experiment 1, horizontally presented addition problems were more impaired than vertically presented ones, according to a verbal WM load; conversely, vertically presented addition problems were more affected by a visuospatial WM load, especially when the children were required to perform approximate calculations. In Experiment 2, this pattern emerged in neither exact nor approximate calculations. Finally, in Experiment 3, the specific involvement of WM components was observed only in problems with carrying. Overall, these results reveal that both approximate calculation and carrying procedures demand particularly high WM resources that vary according to the task's constraints.     

On the ability to directly evaluate sensory ratios

The study explored whether participants could directly evaluate sensory ratios. The results indicate that they did not exhibit this ability for the extensive continuum of length and the intensive continua of brightness and brightness difference. Functional measurement analysis, combined with a chronometric analysis of responses, indicated that participants used mental counting for length and used difference evaluation for brightness and brightness difference. The finding that participants evaluated brightness differences under instructions to evaluate brightness ratios suggests that difference judgments may be a general human capability. It resolves questions raised by prior tests of Torgerson’s conjecture and by prior consistency tests of ratio evaluation.     

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.     

Private psychotherapy training in Italy: A systematic analysis

This paper examines the results of a systematic analysis, organised by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, of private psychotherapy training in Italy. Since 1989, training in psychotherapy in Italy has been governed by a national law which recognises both public and private institutions. While the public system usually comprises approximately 150 students, the private system has grown significantly over time, registering thousands of students in hundreds of schools (for example, 19,123 students in 212 schools in 2011). Systematic analysis variables included geographical distribution, theoretical approaches, training methods, student and teacher characteristics, student’s personal psychotherapy, supervision and apprenticeships. Data were obtained from 92% of the schools. The primary issues discussed in this paper are as follows: the uneven geographical distribution of the schools; the disorderly amalgamation of traditional scientific paradigms; programmes which concentrate on theory and fail to meet international guidelines. One key issue is the excess supply with regard to demand, meaning that recently graduated psychotherapists (especially women) risk underemployment and financial hardship. Student enrolment is also increasingly problematic. This is the first paper to present an in-depth analysis of one European country’s situation in this field. The authors believe it will foster comparison and discussion internationally.     

Visual experience is not necessary for efficient survey spatial cognition: evidence from blindness

This study investigated whether the lack of visual experience affects the ability to create spatial inferential representations of the survey type. We compared the performance of persons with congenital blindness and that of blindfolded sighted persons on four survey representation-based tasks (Experiment 1). Results showed that persons with blindness performed better than blindfolded sighted controls. We repeated the same tests introducing a third group of persons with late blindness (Experiment 2). This last group performed better than blindfolded sighted participants, whereas differences between participants with late and congenital blindness were nonsignificant. The present findings are compatible with results of other studies, which found that when visual perception is lacking, skill in gathering environmental spatial information provided by nonvisual modalities may contribute to a proper spatial encoding. It is concluded that, although it cannot be asserted that total lack of visual experience incurs no cost, our findings are further evidence that visual experience is not a necessary condition for the development of spatial inferential complex representations.     

Difficulties in the control of irrelevant visuospatial information in children with visuospatial learning disabilities

This research tested the hypothesis that children's difficulties in visuospatial working memory (VSWM) may mirror difficulties found with verbal working memory tasks in other categories of children. Two experiments compared the number of correct responses and errors in groups of visuospatial learning disabled children (VSLD) and Controls who were engaged in an active task testing visuospatial working memory. Children were presented with sequences of positions on a 4x4 matrix and were subsequently asked to remember only the last position of each series. In the first Experiment, VSLD children showed greater difficulty in both recalling the last positions and avoiding the irrelevant non-final positions compared with Controls. In the second experiment children of different age groups (second-graders and fifth-graders) were also required to stress, by tapping on the table, the irrelevant positions whenever the experimenter pointed to a coloured cell. Results showed that the number of errors was greater in the VSLD children, and the pattern of errors differed with their grade. In particular, the increased activation of stressed locations produced an increase of correct responses, and a decrease of intrusion errors, except in the case of VSLD second-graders, who made a higher number of intrusions for stressed than for unstressed locations. Results confirm that children with VSLD show a specific deficit in active VSWM, and in particular, in the ability to avoid intrusion errors. In general, the control of irrelevant information appears critical for a successful use of VSWM.     

A comparison of supervisor and incumbent estimates of SDy

This study attempted to determine if experienced job incumbents were capable of providing estimates of worth that were similar to those provided by supervisors. The job class investigated in this study was Eligibility Technician, primarily found in Social or Human Services Departments of public agencies. The participants were Eligibility Supervisors (n=120), and Eligibility Technicians (n=203). The Schmidt, Hunter, McKenzie, and Muldrow (1979) global estimation method was used to obtain estimates of worth at the 15th, 50th and 85th percentiles of job performance. The results indicated that job incumbents provided estimates of job worth that were not statistically different from supervisorial estimates.Portions of this paper were presented as part of a symposium entitled,A psychometric and fiscal assessment for selecting eligibility workers: Multiple agency results. Annual meeting of the International Personnel Management Association Assessment Council, Chicago, Illinois, June, 1991.     

Memory for discourse: Loci mnemonics and the oral presentation effect

The help given by loci mnemonics in memorizing isolated items is widely known, whereas there is no doubt as to whether mnemonics are useful for learning meaningful passages. In the present research it is argued that past failures to find a loci effect with text may have been due to the limited range of conditions explored during analysis of the problem. In the present research the modality of presentation of the text was hypothesized to be particularly relevant. In two experiments groups of trained and non-trained students were asked to memorize two different passages, either using loci mnemonics or not. Loci mnemonics facilitated memory of passages, the increase being greater for oral presentation of text than after private study of a written text.