Developmental change in working memory strategies: From passive maintenance to active refreshing.
Year: 2011
Type: article
Abstract: Change in strategies is often mentioned as a source of memory development. However, though performance in working memory tasks steadily improves during childhood, theories differ in linking this development to strategy changes. Whereas some theories, such as the time-based resource-sharing model, invoke the age-related increase in use and efficiency of a strategy of active maintenance of memory traces, other theories, such as the task-switching model, do not mention strategy change. According to these models, either the cognitive load of the task or the duration of maintenance would account for recall performance. In the present study, we varied orthogonally these 2 factors. The results revealed that a different and unique factor affected recall performance at different ages: the duration of maintenance at age 6 and the cognitive load at age 7. As described by the task-switching model, younger children would not implement any maintenance activities while performing a concurrent task, their memory traces suffering from a time-based decay. This suggests that an increasing capacity of cognitive monitoring allows children to shift from this passive maintenance of memory traces to the active refreshing thereof at around the age of 7, reunifying the 2 current accounts of working memory development as 2 developmental stages.
Source: Developmental Psychology
DOI: 10.1037/a0023193
Authors: Valérie Camos, Pierre Barrouillet
Institutions: Université de Bourgogne, University of Geneva
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1967176916