Università di Genova, Genova, Italy.
Università di Genova, Genova, Italy.
Infant Behav Dev. 2021 May;63:101550. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101550. Epub 2021 Mar 4.
This study presents a new working memory measure for toddlers, inspired by the Spin-the-Pots (Hughes & Ensor, 2005), which we modified structuring it as a memory span task. As in the original task, we required toddlers to retrieve objects hidden in little boxes; however, in our Memory Span Spin-the-Pots (MSSP) we used smaller numbers of targets, and we systematically manipulated memory load, covering or not the display, and rotating it or not. Two experiments involved participants between 18 months and three years. In Experiment 1 we examined the effects of covering and rotation on toddlers' memory. Either covering or rotating the stimuli hindered their performance, and combining both transformations yielded an under-additive interaction. Moreover, the effect of covering decreased in the second half of the procedure. In Experiment 2 we validated the MSSP as a working memory measure by comparing it with the Imitation Sorting Task (IST; Alp, 1994). We found that the MSSP correlated with the IST, also with age partialled out, although the IST was easier. In both experiments, the scores increased with age. Overall, this research sheds light on some variables that affect toddlers' performance on the MSSP, and shows that it can be used as a valid working memory measure for toddlers. The results are discussed considering the attentional processes presumably involved.
本研究提出了一种新的幼儿工作记忆测量方法，灵感来自于旋转罐游戏（Hughes & Ensor，2005），我们对其进行了修改，将其构建为记忆广度任务。与原始任务一样，我们要求幼儿检索隐藏在小盒子里的物体；然而，在我们的记忆广度旋转罐游戏（MSSP）中，我们使用了更少的目标，并且系统地操纵了记忆负荷，是否覆盖显示，以及是否旋转。两个实验涉及 18 个月至 3 岁的参与者。在实验 1 中，我们研究了覆盖和旋转对幼儿记忆的影响。无论是覆盖还是旋转刺激物，都会阻碍他们的表现，并且这两种变换的组合产生了一个低于加性的相互作用。此外，在程序的后半部分，覆盖的效果会减弱。在实验 2 中，我们通过将 MSSP 与模仿分类任务（IST；Alp，1994）进行比较，验证了 MSSP 作为工作记忆测量的有效性。我们发现，MSSP 与 IST 相关，即使排除了年龄因素，IST 也更容易。在两个实验中，分数都随年龄增长而增加。总的来说，这项研究揭示了一些影响幼儿在 MSSP 上表现的变量，并表明它可以作为幼儿有效的工作记忆测量工具。考虑到可能涉及的注意力过程，讨论了结果。
