Brain boosters: How bilingualism and working memory enhance children’s comprehension of which -questions

Adaptive working memory training is being implemented without an adequate understanding of developmental trajectories of working memory. We aimed to quantify from Grade 1 to Grade 3 of primary school (1) changes in verbal and visuospatial working memory and (2) whether low verbal and visuospatial working memory in Grade 1 predicts low working memory in Grade 3. The study design includes a population-based longitudinal study of 1,802 children (66% uptake from all 2,747 Grade 1 students) at 44 randomly selected primary schools in Melbourne, Australia. Backwards Digit Recall (verbal working memory) and Mister X (visuospatial working memory) screening measures from the Automated Working Memory Assessment (M=100; SD=15) were used to assess Grades 1 and 3 (ages 6-7 and 8-9years) students. Low working memory was defined as ≥1 standard deviation below the standard score mean. Descriptive statistics addressed Aim 1, and predictive parameters addressed Aim 2. One thousand seventy (59%) of 1802 Grade 1 participants were reassessed in Grade 3. As expected for typically developing children, group mean standard scores were similar in Grades 1 and 3 for verbal, visuospatial, and overall working memory, but group mean raw scores increased markedly. Compared to "not low" children, those classified as having low working memory in Grade 1 showed much larger increases in both standard and raw scores across verbal, visuospatial, and overall working memory. Sensitivity was very low for Grade 1 low working memory predicting Grade 3 low classifications. Although mean changes in working memory standard scores between Grades 1 and 3 were minimal, we found that individual development varied widely, with marked natural resolution by Grade 3 in children who initially had low working memory. This may render brain-training interventions ineffective in the early school year ages, particularly if (as population-based programmes usually mandate) selection occurs within a screening paradigm.

Objective To explore the correlation between verbal memory and working memory in patients with alcohol dependence(AD). Methods A total of 40 patients with AD and 40 health controls were included in this study. N-back task was used to evaluate the verbal working memory. 20 sets of phrases were used to evaluate long-term verbal memory. Results Correct number of verbal memory in AD group ((5.15±0.92)times) was lower than that of HC group ((7.35±3.07)times) after one-week baseline test, and the difference was statistically significant (t=4.344, P<0.01). Compared with HC group ((1 436.37±192.50)ms, (1.08±0.89)times, (4.00±0.85)times, respectively), AD group((1 535.40± 192.50)ms, (1.90±1.57 )times, (2.60±1.39)times) showed significantly impaired reply reaction time of 2-back, error number of 1-back and 2-back (t=-2.112, P=0.038; t=-2.899, P=0.005; t=-5.433, P<0.01). The error number of 2-back task in AD group was negative correlated with verbal memory after one-week baseline test (r=-0.427, P=0.006). Conclusion The verbal memory is impaired in AD patients. Long-term verbal memory damage have a certain correlation with working memory. Key words: Alcohol drinking; Working memory; N-back task

Verbal working memory is poorer for children with hearing loss than for peers with normal hearing (NH), even with cochlear implantation and early intervention. Poor verbal working memory can affect academic performance, especially in higher grades, making this deficit a significant problem. This study examined the stability of verbal working memory across middle childhood, tested working memory in adolescents with NH or cochlear implants (CIs), explored whether signal enhancement can improve verbal working memory, and tested two hypotheses proposed to explain the poor verbal working memory of children with hearing loss: (a) Diminished auditory experience directly affects executive functions, including working memory; (b) degraded auditory inputs inhibit children's abilities to recover the phonological structure needed for encoding verbal material into storage. Fourteen-year-olds served as subjects: 55 with NH; 52 with CIs. Immediate serial recall tasks were used to assess working memory. Stimuli consisted of nonverbal, spatial stimuli and four kinds of verbal, acoustic stimuli: nonrhyming and rhyming words, and nonrhyming words with two kinds of signal enhancement: audiovisual and indexical. Analyses examined (a) stability of verbal working memory across middle childhood, (b) differences in verbal and nonverbal working memory, (c) effects of signal enhancement on recall, (d) phonological processing abilities, and (e) source of the diminished verbal working memory in adolescents with cochlear implants. Verbal working memory remained stable across middle childhood. Adolescents across groups performed similarly for nonverbal stimuli, but those with CIs displayed poorer recall accuracy for verbal stimuli; signal enhancement did not improve recall. Poor phonological sensitivity largely accounted for the group effect. The central executive for working memory is not affected by hearing loss or cochlear implantation. Instead, the phonological deficit faced by adolescents with CIs denigrates the representation in storage and augmenting the signal does not help.

The present study aimed at comparing the working memory of Greek monolingual students to bilingual ones from migrant backgrounds who all attend primary school. Secondly, an effort was made to investigate the correlation of the working memory with the academic performance in both groups. Moreover, the correlation of the vocabulary strategies, employed by monolingual and bilingual students in an integrated memory-based text framework (Rachanioti, Griva &amp; Alevriadou, 2017), with their working memory was explored. The sample consisted of 20 monolingual and 20 bilingual students of Albanian origin, who attended the 5th and 6th grade of three primary schools in Eastern Thessaloniki, Greece. The monolingual and bilingual students were matched according to their mark reports on academic performance. The Automated Working Memory Assessment (Alloway, 2007) was used to assess the students’ working memory. The data revealed that monolingual and bilingual students did not differ either in the verbal working memory or the visuospatial working memory performance. A statistically significant positive correlation between working memory and academic performance was found in both monolingual and bilingual students. The correlation of the Process strategies with the verbal working memory was statistically significant in monolingual students, as well as in the bilingual ones. The Memory strategies were positively correlated with the verbal and visuospatial working memory in both groups. The Confirmation/consolidation strategies were positively correlated with the verbal working memory only in the bilingual students. Results are discussed in terms of memory strategy instruction that may compensate for a poor working memory of both monolingual and bilingual students in a classroom’s setting, thus aiding to improve their academic performance. This study is the first trial of the AWMA in Greek students as well as bilingual immigrant ones. Article visualizations:

We explored the relationship between working memory (WM) and visually controlled attention (CA) in young bilingual and monolingual children. Previous research has shown that balanced bilingual children outperform monolinguals in CA. However, it is unclear whether this advantage is truly associated with bilingualism or whether potential WM and/or language differences led to the observed effects. Therefore, we examined whether bilingual and monolingual children differ on a visual measure of CA after potential differences in verbal and visual WM had been accounted for. We also looked at the relationship between visually CA and visual WM. Fifteen French monolingual children, 15 English monolingual children, and 15 early simultaneous bilingual children completed verbal short-term memory, verbal WM, visual WM, and visual CA tasks. Detailed information regarding language exposure was collected and abilities in each language were evaluated. A bilingual advantage was not found; that is, monolingual and bilingual children were equally successful in ignoring the irrelevant perceptual distraction on the Simon Task. However, children with better visual WM scores were also more faster and more accurate on the Simon Task. Furthermore, visual WM correlated significantly with the visual CA task.

Some researchers theorize that musicians’ greater language ability is mediated by greater working memory because music and language share the same processing resources. Prior work using working memory sentence processing dual-task paradigms have shown that holding verbal information (e.g., words) in working memory interferes with sentence processing. In contrast, visuospatial stimuli are processed in a different working memory store and should not interfere with sentence processing. We tested whether music showed similar interference to sentence processing as opposed to noninterference like visuospatial stimuli. We also compared musicians to nonmusicians to investigate whether musical training improves verbal working memory. Findings revealed that musical stimuli produced similar working memory interference as linguistic stimuli, but visuospatial stimuli did not—suggesting that music and language rely on similar working memory resources (i.e., verbal skills) that are distinct from visuospatial skills. Musicians performed more accurately on the working memory tasks, particularly for the verbal and musical working memory stimuli, supporting an association between musicianship and greater verbal working memory capacity. Future research is necessary to evaluate the role of music training as a cognitive intervention or educational strategy to enhance reading fluency.

Enhancing working memory through brain stimulation can contribute to the neuroergonomic goal of improving cognitive functioning at work and in everyday life. Imaging and lesion studies suggest that verbal and spatial working memory processing may be controlled in separate brain regions. Specifically, verbal working memory has been associated with the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and spatial working memory with the right DLPFC. The current study used noninvasive brain stimulation to further examine this cortical dissociation between verbal and spatial working memory. We administered 2mA or 0.1mA of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the left and right DLPFC while participants performed verbal and spatial working memory tasks. Contrary to our initial hypotheses, stimulation of the left DLPFC improved spatial working memory but not verbal working memory. Furthermore, stimulation of right DLPFC did not affect verbal or spatial working memory.

Aims and objectives: The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of age of acquisition on verbal working memory (WM) in bilinguals. In light of previous studies that have found a bilingual advantage on non-verbal WM and less consistently on verbal WM, we included participants with native-like second language (L2) proficiency who had benefited from several years of dual language use and who did not differ from the monolinguals in terms of socioeconomic status in order to control for proficiency. Very few studies have looked at bilinguals’ performance on measures of both verbal and non-verbal memory, making it difficult to know how bilingualism influences both types of abilities in the same participants. Therefore, we also compared the groups on non-verbal WM. Methodology: Simultaneous bilingual, early successive bilinguals, and late successive bilinguals were compared with monolingual English speakers. All bilingual participants were selected using three different criteria: self-assessment ratings of English abilities, ratings of nativelikeness by a native English speaker, and scores on a L2 Cloze test. The groups did not differ significantly with respect to their L2 proficiency, or on measures of general cognitive ability. Data and analysis: Fifteen simultaneous bilinguals were compared with 15 early successive bilinguals and 15 late successive bilinguals who acquired English between 4–6 years of age and 7–15 years of age, respectively. The bilinguals were compared with 15 English-speaking monolinguals. Participants were compared using verbal and non-verbal short-term memory and WM tests. Findings: All bilingual groups performed significantly better than the monolinguals on tests of verbal and non-verbal WM, thus supporting a bilingual advantage. The early and late successive bilinguals scored significantly lower than the simultaneous bilinguals, suggesting an age-of-acquisition effect among the bilinguals. Originality and implications: This is the first study to find a bilingual advantage on verbal WM in adults, but also the first study to report an age-of-acquisition effect in groups of bilingual adults carefully selected for their nativelikeness in the L2.

Functional imaging studies indicate that the left hemisphere mediates verbal working memory, while the right hemisphere mediates both verbal and spatial working memory. We evaluated acute stroke patients with working memory tests and imaging to identify whether unilateral dysfunction causes deficits in spatial and/or verbal working memory deficits. While left cortical stroke patients had verbal working memory impairments (p < 0.003), right cortical stroke patients had both verbal (p < 0.007) and spatial working memory (p < 0.03) impairments, confirming functional imaging results. Patients with transient ischemic stroke and patients with non-cortical stroke did not have significant deficits in working memory in either modality.

The relative importance of visual-spatial and verbal working memory for mathematics performance and learning seems to vary with age, the novelty of the material, and the specific math domain that is investigated. In this study, the relations between verbal and visual-spatial working memory and performance in four math domains (i.e., addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) at different ages during primary school are investigated. Children (N = 4337) from grades 2 through 6 participated. Visual-spatial and verbal working memory were assessed using online computerized tasks. Math performance was assessed at the start, middle, and end of the school year using a speeded arithmetic test. Multilevel Multigroup Latent Growth Modeling was used to model individual differences in level and growth in math performance, and examine the predictive value of working memory per grade, while controlling for effects of classroom membership. The results showed that as grade level progressed, the predictive value of visual-spatial working memory for individual differences in level of mathematics performance waned, while the predictive value of verbal working memory increased. Working memory did not predict individual differences between children in their rate of performance growth throughout the school year. These findings are discussed in relation to three, not mutually exclusive, explanations for such age-related findings.

The effect of verbal working memory load in speech/gesture integration processing

Deficits in working memory are considered a core feature of schizophrenia and are present early in the course of the illness. Because working memory continues to mature through childhood and into early adulthood, it was the aim of this study to assess developmental trajectories of verbal and visuospatial working memory performance in children and adolescents with schizophrenia. Differences in the developmental trajectories in patients compared with controls may reflect differential effects within specific neural networks involved in working memory performance. Twenty-six children and adolescents with schizophrenia (age range of 8-19 years) and 37 controls matched on age and gender participated in the study. Modified versions of both a verbal and visuospatial Sternberg Item Recognition Paradigm were administered. In the three age groups studied, patients performed significantly worse than controls on the verbal working memory tasks. There were significant effects of diagnosis and load on the verbal Sternberg, with patients performing worse than controls. However, there was no diagnosis by load interactions. Similar findings were present for the visuospatial Sternberg, except for the youngest age group. The 8- to 12-year-old patients had a disproportionately lower performance on the verbal working memory task than on the visuospatial task. Our findings support disruptions in shared verbal and visuospatial working memory networks, such as those supporting encoding processes, in children and adolescents with schizophrenia. We also found specific deficits in non-shared verbal working memory performance in childhood-onset schizophrenia.

Reduced growth rates of working memory in pre-school children during periods of social isolation have previously been documented. However, the question of whether and how long it takes children to compensate for these deficits has remained open. The present study examined the longitudinal dynamics of verbal and visual working memory development in children between the age of 5 and 7 inclusive, taking into account home environment factors such as the duration of screen time during the pandemic and the number of children in the family. Screen time during social isolation was reported to range from 2 to 44 hours per week. The general pattern of development of verbal and visual working memory during this period was a natural increase, independent of screen time and number of children in the family. However, as the screen time increased, both the actual level of development of verbal working memory at each diagnostic cut-off and the rate of its development as the child grew older decreased. The most pronounced negative impact on verbal working memory development from extended screen time was reported among only children in the family. Continued use of digital devices led not just to a slower rate of development of verbal working memory, but to a temporary regression of it. Children in this part of the sample were able to compensate for the regression in verbal working memory development and catch up with their peers only after returning to a systematic educational process in resumed kindergartens.

In view of the negative impact of anxiety on working memory, we induced anxiety in 26 patients with acute stroke and 33 healthy controls, and studied how the anxiety affected their emotional reactivity and how the reactivity affected their verbal and visuospatial working memory. We compared the overall findings with those in 1 of our patients (C.B.) who had presented with an abnormally high level of state anxiety. We gave verbal and visuospatial 1-back tasks under both neutral and anxiogenic conditions, and we compared participants' working memory scores, self-reported levels of state anxiety, and electrodermal activity. When comparing performance in the neutral condition, the control and patient groups exhibited disrupted verbal working memory, which was associated with greater electrodermal activity and higher state anxiety during the anxiogenic condition. Although patient C.B. also had heightened electrodermal activity during the anxiogenic condition, she experienced a significant reduction in her state anxiety. Her verbal working memory was better during the anxiogenic than the neutral condition. Because of the phonological (subvocal speech) nature of verbal working memory, a higher level of anxious apprehension could explain the increase in state anxiety and the corresponding disruption of verbal working memory in our patient and control groups during the anxiogenic condition. C.B.'s lower state anxiety and selective improvement in verbal working memory during the anxiogenic condition suggest that she felt less anxious apprehension.

Background: Working memory (WM) has gained recent attention as a cognitive construct that may account for language comprehension deficits in persons with aphasia (PWA) (Caspari, Parkinson, LaPointe, & Katz, 1998; Martin, Kohen, & Kalinyak‐Fliszar, 2008; Wright, Downey, Gravier, Love, & Shapiro, 2007). However, few studies have investigated individual differences in performance on sentence comprehension tasks as a function of WM capacity in PWA when WM demands are manipulated. Aims: The purposes of the current study were: (1) to examine the relationships among verbal WM, sentence comprehension, and severity of impairment in PWA and (2) to investigate the differential performance of high versus low verbal WM groups on sentence comprehension tasks in which task demands were manipulated by the length of the sentence stimuli, complexity of syntactic structure, and by presentation method which varied the time over which the linguistic material was available for computation. Methods & Procedures: A total of 20 PWA were divided into high and low WM groups based on a listening version of a WM sentence span task. Each participant completed a listening version (CRTT) and three reading versions (CRTT‐R) of the Computerised Revised Token Test as the sentence comprehension tasks. Outcomes & Results: The WM task significantly predicted performance on the CRTT conditions in which information was only temporarily available, thereby imposing greater WM demands on sentence comprehension. The verbal WM task was significantly correlated with aphasia severity and a principal components analysis revealed that the WM task, overall aphasia severity, and overall reading impairment level loaded on a single factor with 76% of shared variance. The low WM group's performance was significantly lower than the high WM group on the CRTT subtests with syntactically more complex structures and on the CRTT conditions with temporally restricted presentation methods. Conclusions: This verbal WM task was significantly and moderately correlated with the overall severity of aphasia as well as with both listening and reading sentence comprehension. The WM group differences emerged only in sentence comprehension tasks with greater WM demands. These results are consistent with the notion that WM effects are most evident when WM capacity is sufficiently taxed by the task demands (e.g., Caplan & Waters, 1999; Just & Carpenter, 1992).