Ohio University, Athens, USA.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2012 Jun;55(3):669-82. doi: 10.1044/1092-4388(2011/11-0111). Epub 2012 Jan 5.
This study investigated the role of processing complexity of verbal working memory tasks in predicting spoken sentence comprehension in typically developing children. Of interest was whether simple and more complex working memory tasks have similar or different power in predicting sentence comprehension.
Sixty-five children (6- to 12-year-olds) completed a verbal working memory (listening) span task that varied in syntactic processing difficulty (simple sentences representing a "simple working memory task," complex sentences representing a "complex working memory task") and a standardized sentence comprehension test.
Word recall on the simple and complex working memory tasks correlated with each other. Both memory tasks also correlated with children's sentence comprehension. Regression analyses showed that the simple working memory task remained a significant predictor of comprehension even after accounting for variance associated with age and performance on the complex working memory task.
Results were interpreted to suggest that relative to more complex verbal working memory tasks, simple tasks are more robust predictors of children's sentence comprehension because they represent a basic yet robust index of working memory that sufficiently captures controlled attentional focus.
本研究旨在探讨言语工作记忆任务加工复杂性在预测正常发育儿童口语句子理解中的作用。本研究关注的是简单和更复杂的工作记忆任务在预测句子理解方面是否具有相似或不同的能力。
65 名儿童（6 至 12 岁）完成了一项言语工作记忆（听力）广度任务，该任务在句法加工难度上有所不同（简单句代表“简单工作记忆任务”，复杂句代表“复杂工作记忆任务”），并完成了一项标准化句子理解测试。
简单和复杂工作记忆任务上的单词回忆彼此相关。两个记忆任务也与儿童的句子理解相关。回归分析表明，即使考虑到复杂工作记忆任务的年龄和表现相关的差异，简单工作记忆任务仍然是理解的一个重要预测因素。
研究结果表明，与更复杂的言语工作记忆任务相比，简单任务是儿童句子理解更可靠的预测指标，因为它们代表了工作记忆的基本但稳健的指标，足以捕捉到受控的注意力焦点。
