Development of visuo - spatial memory span 1 The role of structure in age - related increases in visuo - spatial working memory span

Development of visuo-spatial memory span 2 Abstract There is an important debate in the literature about the possible causes of developmental increases in working-memory span scores. In the present study, we tested the role of structure in relation to the age-related increases in visuo-spatial span performance. To that end, children and adults between nine and nineteen years old conducted structured and unstructured versions of the Corsi blocks task. All age groups performed better on structured than on unstructured paths, which indicates that working-memory control processes recruit resources such as long-term memory knowledge in performing the visuo-spatial span task. Interestingly, older participants benefited more from the presented structure than did younger participants, indicating that the structured presentation of sequence paths enhances the development of visuo-spatial span performance. Additional analyses showed that the effect of structure was not attributable to other path characteristics such as the path length or the number of path crossings. Implications of the present findings for views on the development of visuo-spatial working memory are discussed. Development of visuo-spatial memory span 3 The role of structure in age-related increases in visuo-spatial span There is no doubt about the improvement of working-memory span performance across age. However, the possible causes of this increasing performance are still poorly understood – and this is especially true for the visuo-spatial component of working memory. The goal of the present study is to investigate the role of one possible cause of age-related improvement in visuo-spatial span performance. More specifically, we test whether structural information, stored in long-term memory, plays a significant role in the development of visuo-spatial span performance. Working memory. Working memory serves the " moment-to-moment monitoring, processing, and maintenance of information " (Baddeley & Logie, 1999, p. 28). One of the most influential views on working memory is based on the multi-componential working-memory model of Baddeley and Hitch (1974; Baddeley, 1986), consisting of a central executive component that supervises two specialized slave systems which deal with different modalities of information. The first slave system is the phonological loop, which is responsible for the manipulation and the short-term maintenance of verbal information. The second slave system is the visuo-spatial sketch pad, which fulfills a similar role for visuo-spatial information. More recently, Baddeley (2000) added a fourth system to the working-memory model, the episodic buffer, which provides a temporary interface between the two slave systems and long-term memory. The development of visuo-spatial working …