Swanson H L
School of Education, University of California, Riverside 92521, USA.
Mem Cognit. 1996 Jan;24(1):70-82. doi: 10.3758/bf03197273.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the degree to which age-related and individual differences in children's working memory (WM) are due to a general or task-specific capacity system. Experiment 1 correlated children's (N = 146; age range 5-19 years) verbal and visual-spatial working memory performance with various intelligence and achievement measures. The results supporting a general system were that (1) visual-spatial and verbal WM measures were significantly intercorrelated with and without age partialed out and (2) both verbal and visual-spatial WM measures were significantly correlated with diverse achievement and intelligence measures. Experiment 2 compared three age groups (N = 192; 7-, 10-, and 13-year-olds) on working-memory performance tasks under initial, enhanced (cued), and maintenance conditions. The results supporting a general capacity system were that (1) age-related performance differences in WM were found on all conditions and not isolated to specific processes, (2) the maintenance measures (high-load condition) predicted the variance better in age-related performance than process measures, and (3) although individual differences in WM performance reflected two independent operations, these operations produced similar correlations to achievement within age groups. Overall, the results support a general capacity explanation of age-related and individual differences in children's WM performance.
本研究的目的是调查儿童工作记忆（WM）中与年龄相关的差异和个体差异在多大程度上归因于一般能力系统或特定任务能力系统。实验1将儿童（N = 146；年龄范围5 - 19岁）的言语和视觉空间工作记忆表现与各种智力和学业成绩测量指标进行了关联。支持一般系统的结果如下：（1）无论是否剔除年龄因素，视觉空间和言语WM测量指标都显著相互关联；（2）言语和视觉空间WM测量指标均与多种学业成绩和智力测量指标显著相关。实验2在初始、增强（提示）和维持条件下，比较了三个年龄组（N = 192；7岁、10岁和13岁）在工作记忆表现任务上的情况。支持一般能力系统的结果如下：（1）在所有条件下都发现了WM中与年龄相关的表现差异，且并非局限于特定过程；（2）维持测量指标（高负荷条件）在与年龄相关的表现方面比过程测量指标能更好地预测方差；（3）尽管WM表现中的个体差异反映了两种独立操作，但这些操作在各年龄组内与学业成绩产生的相关性相似。总体而言，结果支持对儿童WM表现中与年龄相关的差异和个体差异的一般能力解释。
