Abstract
Visual working memory (VWM) is the ability to hold in mind visual information for brief periods of time. The current study investigated VWM precision development longitudinally. Participants (N=40, aged 7–11 years) completed delayed reproduction sequential VWM tasks at baseline and two years later. Results show age-related improvement in recall precision on both 1-item and 3-item VWM tasks, suggesting development during childhood and early adolescence in the resolution with which both single and multiple items are stored in VWM. Probabilistic modelling of response distribution data suggests age-related improvement in precision is attributable to a specific decrease in the variability (noisiness) of stored feature representations. This highlights a novel developmental mechanism which may underlie longitudinal improvement in VWM performance, crucially without invoking improvement in the number of items that can be stored. VWM precision provides a sensitive metric with which to track developmental changes longitudinally, shedding light on underlying cognitive mechanisms.
Highlights
Visual working memory (VWM) provides a temporary storage mechanism for the retention and manipulation of visual information to support other cognitive processes (Luck & Vogel, 1997)
Working memory precision improves with age on the 1- and 3-item VWM tasks
We present longitudinal evidence that the precision of VWM for individually and multiply-encoded items develops throughout middle childhood and early adolescence
Summary
Visual working memory (VWM) provides a temporary storage mechanism for the retention and manipulation of visual information to support other cognitive processes (Luck & Vogel, 1997). Numerous developmental studies have shown that performance on established neuropsychological tests of VWM improves during childhood (Alloway, Gathercole, & Pickering, 2006; Gathercole, Pickering, Ambridge, & Wearing, 2004). In these tests, participants view a static visual array (e.g. coloured shapes) or spatiotemporal sequence of visual events (e.g. block tapping) which are held in memory and reproduced following a delay. Participants view a static visual array (e.g. coloured shapes) or spatiotemporal sequence of visual events (e.g. block tapping) which are held in memory and reproduced following a delay These studies have demonstrated, within large cross-sectional datasets, robust age trajectories and evidence for developmental stability in the relationship of VWM to other cognitive components (Gathercole et al, 2004). What are the fundamental cognitive mechanisms underlying developmental improvements in VWM? Most traditional measures of VWM rely on indices of the number of items that can be remembered, e.g. using tasks
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