Operational efficiency and the growth of short-term memory span

Case, Robbie; Kurland, D. Midian; Goldberg, Jill

doi:10.1016/0022-0965(82)90054-6

Cited by 1,041 publications

(888 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Contrary to Case's claim (Case, 1985;Case et al, 1982), and as Gavens and Barrouillet (2004) observed, the age-related increase in processing efficiency is not the sole factor responsible for the development of working memory. In the same way, it seems that this development cannot totally be accounted for by a global processingspeed mechanism as Kail and Salthouse (1994) suggested.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 62%

Working memory span development: A time-based resource-sharing model account.

Barrouillet

Gavens

Vergauwe

et al. 2009

Developmental Psychology

179

249

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The time-based resource-sharing model (P. Barrouillet, S. Bernardin, & V. Camos, 2004) assumes that during complex working memory span tasks, attention is frequently and surreptitiously switched from processing to reactivate decaying memory traces before their complete loss. Three experiments involving children from 5 to 14 years of age investigated the role of this reactivation process in developmental differences in working memory spans. Though preschoolers seem to adopt a serial control without any attempt to refresh stored items when engaged in processing, the reactivation process is efficient from age 7 onward and increases in efficiency until late adolescence, underpinning a sizable part of developmental differences.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 62%

Working memory span development: A time-based resource-sharing model account.

Barrouillet

Gavens

Vergauwe

et al. 2009

Developmental Psychology

179

249

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“…Work along this line needs to flesh out in more detail how the resource limit is to be combined with the mechanisms of interference. (Baddeley et al, 1975;Schweickert & Boruff, 1986) Neo-Piagetian general resource model (Case et al, 1982) Feature model (Nairne, 1990) Limited-capacity trace-decay theory (Jensen, 1988;Salthouse, 1996) Multiple-resource model (Alloway et al, 2006;Logie, 2011) Interference model (Oberauer & Kliegl, 2001 Primacy model (Page & Norris, 1998) 3CAPS (Just & Carpenter, 1992) SOB (Lewandowsky & Farrell, 2008b) and SOB-CS (Oberauer, Lewandowsky, et al, 2012) Task-switching model (Towse & Hitch, 1995;Towse, Hitch, & Hutton, 2000) Slot model (Luck & Vogel, 2013;Cowan et al, 2012) Temporal-clustering-andsequencing model (Farrell, 2012) Computational phonological loop model (Burgess & Hitch, 1999 Resource models of visual WM Time-based resource-sharing model Camos et al, 2009) Note: Theories in the table were selected because they attribute the WM capacity limit unambiguously to decay, limited resources, or interference, respectively. Some theories of WM were not included because they combine two or three of the hypotheses, or make no clear assumptions about what causes the capacity limit.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This phenomenon has been regarded as a manifestation of the WM capacity limit since the early days of WM research (Case et al, 1982;Daneman & Carpenter, 1980;Baddeley & Hitch, 1974).…”

Section: Round B: Retention Interval and Distractor Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

What limits working memory capacity?

Oberauer

Farrell

Jarrold

et al. 2016

Psychological Bulletin

253

213

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We review the evidence for the three principal theoretical contenders that vie to explain why and how working memory capacity is limited. We examine the possibility that capacity limitations arise from temporal decay; we examine whether they might reflect a limitation in cognitive resources; and we ask whether capacity might be limited because of mutual interference of representations in working memory. We evaluate each hypothesis against a common set of findings reflecting the capacity limit: The set-size effect and its modulation by domain-specificity and heterogeneity of the memory set; the effects of unfilled retention intervals and of distractor processing in the retention interval; and the pattern of correlates of working-memory tests. We conclude that---at least for verbal memoranda---a decay explanation is untenable. A resource-based view remains tenable but has difficulty accommodating several findings. The interference approach has its own set of difficulties but accounts best for the set of findings, and therefore appears to present the most promising approach for future development.Keywords: working memory, decay, resources, interference, individual differences WM Capacity 3 What Limits Working Memory Capacity?Working memory (WM) is the system that holds mental representations available for processing. Its limited capacity is a limiting factor for the complexity of our thoughts (Halford, Cowan, & Andrews, 2007;Oberauer, 2009). Measures of WM capacity have been identified as major determinants of cognitive development in childhood (Bayliss, Jarrold, Gunn, & Baddeley, 2003) and in old age (Park et al., 2002;Salthouse, 1994), as well as of individual differences in intellectual abilities (Conway, Kane, & Engle, 2003;Jarrold & Towse, 2006). Understanding why WM capacity is limited is therefore an essential step toward understanding why human cognitive abilities are limited, why individuals differ in these abilities, and how abilities develop over the lifespan.In this article we use the term WM capacity in a descriptive sense, referring to the fact that people can hold only a limited amount of mental content available for processing. The capacity limit is usually operationalized as a limit on how much new information people can remember over short periods of time (in the order of seconds), but there are reasons to believe (discussed below) that the capacity limit also applies to people's ability to make information in the current environment simultaneously available for processing.Hypotheses about what limits WM capacity can be organized into three groups: (1) Some theories assume that representations in WM decay over time, unless decay is prevented by some form of restoration process such as rehearsal. According to this view, WM has limited capacity because only a limited amount of information can be rehearsed before it fades away into an irrecoverable state (Baddeley, Thomson, & Buchanan, 1975;Schweickert & Boruff, 1986). (2) Alternatively, WM capacity has been characterized as a limited resourc...

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“…Almost all measures of short-term memory show a steady increase from the preschool years through to adolescence (Case, Kurland, & Goldberg, 1982;Dempster, 1985;Hulme, Thomson, Muir, & Lawrence, 1984;Isaacs & Vargha-Khadem, 1989;Siegel, 1994).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Structure of Working Memory From 4 to 15 Years of Age.

Gathercole

Pickering

Ambridge

et al. 2004

Developmental Psychology

1,345

105

1,085

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The structure of working memory and its development across the childhood years were investigated in children 4 -15 years of age. The children were given multiple assessments of each component of the A. D. Baddeley and G. Hitch (1974) working memory model. Broadly similar linear functions characterized performance on all measures as a function of age. From 6 years onward, a model consisting of 3 distinct but correlated factors corresponding to the working memory model provided a good fit to the data. The results indicate that the basic modular structure of working memory is present from 6 years of age and possibly earlier, with each component undergoing sizable expansion in functional capacity throughout the early and middle school years to adolescence.

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Operational efficiency and the growth of short-term memory span

Cited by 1,041 publications

References 13 publications

Working memory span development: A time-based resource-sharing model account.

Working memory span development: A time-based resource-sharing model account.

What limits working memory capacity?

The Structure of Working Memory From 4 to 15 Years of Age.

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