Children's rehearsal development parallels that of self-talk in other executive functions.

Rehearsal is a form of self-talk used to support short-term memory. Historically, the study of rehearsal development has diverged from the study of self-talk more generally. The current experiment examines whether two characteristics of self-talk (impact of task difficulty and self-talk's narrative vs. planning purpose) are also observed in rehearsal. Eighty children, ages 4-7, were tasked with remembering the three-item and six-item lists over a 15-s delay. Children's spontaneous use of fixed rehearsal (i.e., immediate repetition of a just-presented item) and cumulative rehearsal (i.e., cycling through multiple items at a time) was documented from video recordings. Four-year-olds narrated item presentations using fixed rehearsal. Six- and seven-year-olds proactively planned for recall by engaging cumulative rehearsal. Five-year-olds used both forms of rehearsal, but their frequency of cumulative rehearsal was dependent on list length. Therefore, rehearsal is susceptible to task manipulations that affect other forms of self-talk. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Self-generated strategies in the phonological similarity effect.

Strategy use is an important source of individual differences during immediate serial reconstruction. However, not all strategies are equally suited for all tasks. Therefore, assessing participants' dynamic strategy selection across contexts is an important next step for reliable interpretation of individual differences in short-term memory span - in both experimental and clinical settings. Strategy use during reconstruction of phonologically similar and phonologically distinct word sets was directly assessed using a self-report questionnaire. In two experiments, participants reported consistent use of phonological strategies across word sets; however, participants reported additionally using non-phonological strategies (i.e., mental imagery and sentence generation) when tasked with remembering phonologically similar words. In particular, strategy selection was most impacted when the phonologically similar word set was either the only word set or the first word set participants received. When the phonologically similar lists were presented after a classic list of phonologically distinct words, participants continued using the phonological strategies that had been effective for the distinct lists. Moreover, in both experiments, accuracy of phonologically similar lists was better predicted by use of non-phonological strategies than use of phonological strategies. Specifically, reported use of verbalization or rehearsal did not predict accuracy, but participants who reported regularly using mental imagery and/or sentence generation (typically in conjunction with rehearsal) displayed greater serial memory for similar words. These results do not undermine the general assumptions of the phonological similarity effect, but they do indicate that its interpretation is less straightforward than previously thought.

Lexical access speed and the development of phonological recoding during immediate serial recall.

A recent Registered Replication Report (RRR) of the development of verbal rehearsal during serial recall (Elliott et al., 2021) revealed that children verbalized at younger ages than previously thought (Flavell et al., 1966), but did not identify sources of individual differences. Here we use mediation analysis to reanalyze data from the 934 children ranging from 5 to 10 years old from the RRR for that purpose. From ages 5 to 7, the time taken for a child to label pictures (i.e. isolated naming speed) predicted the child's spontaneous use of labels during a visually-presented serial reconstruction task, despite no need for spoken responses. For 6- and 7-year-olds, isolated naming speed also predicted recall. The degree to which verbalization mediated the relation between isolated naming speed and recall changed across development. All relations dissipated by age 10. The same general pattern was observed in an exploratory analysis of delayed recall for which greater demands are placed on rehearsal for item maintenance. Overall, our findings suggest that spontaneous phonological recoding during a standard short-term memory task emerges around age 5, increases in efficiency during the early elementary school years, and is sufficiently automatic by age 10 to support immediate serial recall in most children. Moreover, the findings highlight the need to distinguish between phonological recoding and rehearsal in developmental studies of short-term memory.

Developmental change in the nature of attention allocation in a dual task.

Younger children have more difficulty in sharing attention between two concurrent tasks than do older participants, but in addition to this developmental change, we documented changes in the nature of attention sharing. We studied children 6-8 and 10-14 years old and college students (in all, 104 women and 76 men; 3% Hispanic, 3% Black or African American, 3% Asian, 7% multiracial, and 84% White). On each dual-task trial, the participant received an array of colored squares to be retained for a subsequent probe recognition test and then an easy or more difficult signal requiring a quick response (a speeded task, clicking a key on the same side of the screen as the signal or the opposite side). Finally, each trial ended with the presentation of the array item recognition probe and the participant's response to it. In our youngest age group (6-8 years), array memory was often displaced by the speeded task performed under load, especially when it was the opposite-side task, but speeded-task accuracies were unaffected by the presence of an array memory load. In contrast, in older participants (10-14 years and college students), the memory load was maintained better, with some cost to the speeded task. With maturity, participants were better able to adopt a proactive stance in which not only present processing demands but also upcoming demands were taken into account, allowing them to balance the demands of the two tasks. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Acoustic-Phonetic Mismatches Impair Serial Recall of Degraded Words.

Sequences of phonologically similar words are more difficult to remember than phonologically distinct sequences. This study investigated whether this difficulty arises in the acoustic similarity of auditory stimuli or in the corresponding phonological labels in memory. Participants reconstructed sequences of words which were degraded with a vocoder. We manipulated the phonological similarity of response options across two groups. One group was trained to map stimulus words onto phonologically similar response labels which matched the recorded word; the other group was trained to map words onto a set of plausible responses which were mismatched from the original recordings but were selected to have less phonological overlap. Participants trained on the matched responses were able to learn responses with less training and recall sequences more accurately than participants trained on the mismatched responses, even though the mismatched responses were more phonologically distinct from one another and participants were unaware of the mismatch. The relative difficulty of recalling items in the correct position was the same across both sets of response labels. Mismatched responses impaired recall accuracy across all positions except the final item in each list. These results are consistent with the idea that increased difficulty of mapping acoustic stimuli onto phonological forms impairs serial recall. Increased mapping difficulty could impair retention of memoranda and impede consolidation into phonological forms, which would impair recall in adverse listening conditions.

Decomposing the role of rehearsal in auditory distraction during serial recall.

According to the interference-by-process mechanism of auditory distraction, irrelevant changing sounds interfere with subvocal articulatory-motor sequencing during rehearsal. However, previous attempts to limit rehearsal with concurrent articulation and examine the residual irrelevant sound effect have limited both cumulative rehearsal as well as the initial assembly of articulatory-phonological labels. The current research decomposed rehearsal into these two levels of articulatory-phonological sequencing: silent concurrent articulation limits the availability of both serial repetition and articulatory-phonological recoding; rapid serial visual presentation allows for articulatory-phonological recoding but presents items too quickly for cumulative serial repetition. As predicted by the interference-by-process account, concurrent articulation -- but not rapid serial visual presentation -- reduced the irrelevant sound effect. Not only did the irrelevant sound effect persist in the face of rapid serial visual presentation, a steady-state effect also emerged. These findings indicate that irrelevant sounds interfere with both serial processing at the level of articulatory-motor planning at the word level as well as in the formation of item-to-item associations created via serial repetition of complete items. Moreover, these findings highlight the benefits of articulatory-phonological recoding - independent of pure rehearsal -- within serial recall.

Evaluating Pediatric Cochlear Implant Users' Encoding, Storage, and Retrieval Strategies in Verbal Working Memory.

Purpose The current study adopts a systematic approach to the examination of working memory components in pediatric cochlear implant (CI) users by separately assessing contributions of encoding, storage, and retrieval. Method Forty-nine long-term CI users and 56 typically hearing controls completed forward and backward span tasks with 3 stimulus sets: visually presented digits, pictures of concrete nouns, and novel symbols. In addition, measures associated with each memory stage were collected: Rapid digit naming provided an estimate of phonological recoding speed, nonword repetition assessed the robustness of representations within phonological storage, and vocabulary knowledge (as measured by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test; Dunn & Dunn, 1997 ) estimated redintegration abilities during retrieval. Results Linear mixed modeling revealed that digit naming speed and vocabulary knowledge were consistently related to short-term and working memory span in both CI users and typically hearing controls. However, nonword repetition only contributed to the model for short-term memory. Conclusions Nonword repetition, an index of phonological storage, explained little of the individual variability inworking memory differences between CI users and typically hearing peers. On the other hand, individual differences in encoding and retrieval explained a significant amount of outcome variability in both short-term and working memory tasks. Differences between CI users and typically hearing peers in working memory therefore appear to reflect process components of encoding and retrieval and not simply differences in memory storage. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.7849394.

Auditory distraction does more than disrupt rehearsal processes in children's serial recall.

As children mature, their ability to remember information improves. This improvement has been linked to changes in verbal control processes such as rehearsal. Rehearsal processes are thought to undergo a quantitative shift around 7 years of age; however, direct measurement of rehearsal is difficult. We investigated a measure of rehearsal ability in children and compared this measurement to serial recall performance in the presence of auditory distractors. Theories of auditory distraction effects in children rely upon a combination of attentionally based and serial-order-based processes (Elliott et al. in Journal of Memory and Language, 88, 39-50, 2016); the present work contributes to the understanding of auditory distraction effects by measuring both types of processes within one study. Children completed an individually adjusted serial-recall task with auditory distractors. To assess rehearsal, each child's proportionalized articulatory difference (PAD) score was calculated from performance on adaptive digit span tasks performed in quiet and under articulatory suppression (see also Jarrold & Citroën in Developmental Psychology, 49, 837-847, 2013). Attentional processes were measured in two ways: first, by using complex span tasks, and second, by children's vulnerability to disruption in the context of irrelevant sound. The results indicated that the rehearsal measure was significantly related to the auditory distraction effect, but this relation was isolated to the attentional-diversion component of the irrelevant-sound effect. The results provide preliminary evidence that children consume attentional resources during rehearsal. Moreover, irrelevant sound disrupts children's rehearsal not solely through automatic, obligatory conflict. Rather, irrelevant sound diverts children's attention, which prevents attentional resources from supporting rehearsal processes.

Short-Term and Working Memory Impairments in Early-Implanted, Long-Term Cochlear Implant Users Are Independent of Audibility and Speech Production.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether early-implanted, long-term cochlear implant (CI) users display delays in verbal short-term and working memory capacity when processes related to audibility and speech production are eliminated. DESIGN: Twenty-three long-term CI users and 23 normal-hearing controls each completed forward and backward digit span tasks under testing conditions that differed in presentation modality (auditory or visual) and response output (spoken recall or manual pointing). RESULTS: Normal-hearing controls reproduced more lists of digits than the CI users, even when the test items were presented visually and the responses were made manually via touchscreen response. CONCLUSIONS: Short-term and working memory delays observed in CI users are not due to greater demands from peripheral sensory processes such as audibility or from overt speech-motor planning and response output organization. Instead, CI users are less efficient at encoding and maintaining phonological representations in verbal short-term memory using phonological and linguistic strategies during memory tasks.

Verbal processing speed and executive functioning in long-term cochlear implant users.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to report how verbal rehearsal speed (VRS), a form of covert speech used to maintain verbal information in working memory, and another verbal processing speed measure, perceptual encoding speed, are related to 3 domains of executive function (EF) at risk in cochlear implant (CI) users: verbal working memory, fluency-speed, and inhibition-concentration. METHOD: EF, speech perception, and language outcome measures were obtained from 55 prelingually deaf, long-term CI users and matched controls with normal hearing (NH controls). Correlational analyses were used to assess relations between VRS (articulation rate), perceptual encoding speed (digit and color naming), and the outcomes in each sample. RESULTS: CI users displayed slower verbal processing speeds than NH controls. Verbal rehearsal speed was related to 2 EF domains in the NH sample but was unrelated to EF outcomes in CI users. Perceptual encoding speed was related to all EF domains in both groups. CONCLUSIONS: Verbal rehearsal speed may be less influential for EF quality in CI users than for NH controls, whereas rapid automatized labeling skills and EF are closely related in both groups. CI users may develop processing strategies in EF tasks that differ from the covert speech strategies routinely employed by NH individuals.

Speech intelligibility in deaf children after long-term cochlear implant use.

PURPOSE: This study investigated long-term speech intelligibility outcomes in 63 prelingually deaf children, adolescents, and young adults who received cochlear implants (CIs) before age 7 (M = 2;11 [years;months], range = 0;8-6;3) and used their implants for at least 7 years (M = 12;1, range = 7;0-22;5). METHOD: Speech intelligibility was assessed using playback methods with naïve, normal-hearing listeners. RESULTS: Mean intelligibility scores were lower than scores obtained from an age- and nonverbal IQ-matched, normal-hearing control sample, although the majority of CI users scored within the range of the control sample. Our sample allowed us to investigate the contribution of several demographic and cognitive factors to speech intelligibility. CI users who used their implant for longer periods of time exhibited poorer speech intelligibility scores. Crucially, results from a hierarchical regression model suggested that this difference was due to more conservative candidacy criteria in CI users with more years of use. No other demographic variables accounted for significant variance in speech intelligibility scores beyond age of implantation and amount of spoken language experience (assessed by communication mode and family income measures). CONCLUSION: Many factors that have been found to contribute to individual differences in language outcomes in normal-hearing children also contribute to long-term CI users' ability to produce intelligible speech.

Age differences in visual working memory capacity: not based on encoding limitations.

Why does visual working memory performance increase with age in childhood? One recent study (Cowan et al., 2010b) ruled out the possibility that the basic cause is a tendency in young children to clutter working memory with less-relevant items (within a concurrent array, colored items presented in one of two shapes). The age differences in memory performance, however, theoretically could result from inadequate encoding of the briefly presented array items by younger children. We replicated the key part of the procedure in children 6-8 and 11-13 years old and college students (total N = 90), but with a much slower, sequential presentation of the items to ensure adequate encoding. We also required verbal responses during encoding to encourage or discourage labeling of item information. Although verbal labeling affected performance, age differences persisted across labeling conditions, further supporting the existence of a basic growth in capacity.

With development, list recall includes more chunks, not just larger ones.

The nature of the childhood development of immediate recall has been difficult to determine. There could be a developmental increase in either the number of chunks held in working memory or the use of grouping to make the most of a constant capacity. In 3 experiments with children in the early elementary school years and adults, we show that improvements in the immediate recall of word and picture lists come partly from increases in the number of chunks of items retained in memory. This finding was based on a distinction between access to a studied group of items (i.e., recall of at least 1 item from the group) and completion of the accessed group (i.e., the proportion of the items recalled from the group). Access rates increased with age, even with statistical controls for completion rates, implicating development of capacity in chunks.

Seven-year-olds allocate attention like adults unless working memory is overloaded.

Previous studies have indicated that visual working memory performance increases with age in childhood, but it is not clear why. One main hypothesis has been that younger children are less efficient in their attention; specifically, they are less able to exclude irrelevant items from working memory to make room for relevant items. We examined this hypothesis by measuring visual working memory capacity under a continuum of five attention conditions. A recognition advantage was found for items to be attended as opposed to ignored. The size of this attention-related effect was adult-like in young children with small arrays, suggesting that their attention processes are efficient even though their working memory capacity is smaller than that of older children and adults. With a larger working memory load, this efficiency in young children was compromised. The efficiency of attention cannot be the sole explanation for the capacity difference.

Working memory.

The working memory system maintains the limited information that can be kept in mind at one time. These memories are distinct from the vast amount of information stored in long-term memory. Here we give a brief summary of findings over the past half-century in the areas of working memory that we see as particularly important for understanding its nature. We discuss several current controversies, including whether there are different systems or brain modules for different kinds of working memory, why we lose items from working memory, and how individuals and age groups differ. We try to describe what is and is not known. Last, a discussion of findings from neuroimaging helps to constrain working memory theory. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

Short-term memory loss over time without retroactive stimulus interference.

A key question in cognitive psychology is whether information in short-term memory is lost as a function of time. Lewandowsky, Duncan, and Brown (2004) argued against that memory loss because forgetting in serial recall occurred to the same extent across serial positions regardless of the rate of recall. However, we believe Lewandowsky et al. (2004) only prevented one of two types of rehearsal; they did not prevent nonarticulatory rehearsal via attention. To prevent articulatory and nonarticulatory rehearsal without introducing interference, we presented unevenly timed stimuli for serial recall and, on some trials, required that the timing of stimuli be reproduced in the response. In those trials only, evidence of memory loss over time emerged. Further research is needed to identify whether this memory loss is decay or lost distinctiveness.