A Dotted Triangle or Dots of Three: The Role of Representational Content on Working Memory Capacity in Early Childhood

IF 3.2 1区心理学 Q2 PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL

Developmental Science Pub Date : 2025-08-18 DOI:10.1111/desc.70066

Tongyan Ren, Xuechen Ding, Chen Cheng

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Working memory (WM) is a critical cognitive system that supports processing a variety of information. Remembering different types of objects may impose different levels of cognitive demands on WM performance. In the present study, we examined 205 children's WM in representing different types of content and its developmental trajectories in early childhood. Experiment 1 examined 5-year-olds’ WM performance when remembering different content (animals and dots). To control perceptual differences, Experiment 2 compared the same-age children's WM performance when the stimuli (e.g., three dots) needed to be encoded from different representational domains (perceptual domain: visuospatial representation; conceptual domain: numerical representation). In Experiment 3, we further investigated the early developmental trends of representing different types of information in WM between the ages of 3 and 5. Results showed that children's WM performance varied over different types of stimuli. When presented with the same stimuli, encoding different aspects of the content (conceptual vs. perceptual) may impose different levels of cognitive demands, and the performance of which was dependent on the WM loads. Together these findings informed our understanding of the role of representational content in children's WM development and provided empirical implications for considering the testing stimuli when designing WM measurements for young children.

Summary

Children's working memory (WM) performance varies depending on the type of representational content (conceptual vs. perceptual).
Encoding the same stimuli from different representational domains imposes varying memory loads in preschool-aged children.
Developmental trends in WM for different types of content emerge between ages three and five.
Findings provide insights for designing assessments tailored to young children's developmental and representational capacities.

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一个三角点或三个点：表征内容对幼儿工作记忆容量的作用

工作记忆（Working memory， WM）是一种支持处理多种信息的重要认知系统。记住不同类型的物体可能会对WM的表现施加不同程度的认知要求。在本研究中，我们考察了205名儿童早期WM对不同类型内容的表征及其发展轨迹。实验1考察了5岁儿童在记忆不同内容（动物和圆点）时的WM表现。为了控制知觉差异，实验2比较了来自不同表征域（知觉域：视觉空间表征；概念域：数字表征）的刺激（如三个点）在同年龄儿童WM的表现。在实验3中，我们进一步研究了3 ~ 5岁儿童WM不同类型信息表征的早期发展趋势。结果表明，在不同类型的刺激下，儿童的WM表现存在差异。当面对相同的刺激时，对内容的不同方面（概念和知觉）进行编码可能会施加不同水平的认知需求，其表现取决于WM负荷。总之，这些发现使我们了解表征性内容在儿童WM发展中的作用，并为设计幼儿WM测量时考虑测试刺激提供了实证意义。儿童的工作记忆（WM）表现因表征内容的类型（概念性与感性）而异。对来自不同表征域的相同刺激进行编码会给学龄前儿童带来不同的记忆负荷。不同类型内容的WM的发展趋势出现在三到五岁之间。研究结果为设计适合幼儿发展和表征能力的评估提供了见解。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Developmental Science Multiple-

CiteScore

8.10

自引率

8.10%

发文量

132

期刊介绍： Developmental Science publishes cutting-edge theory and up-to-the-minute research on scientific developmental psychology from leading thinkers in the field. It is currently the only journal that specifically focuses on human developmental cognitive neuroscience. Coverage includes: - Clinical, computational and comparative approaches to development - Key advances in cognitive and social development - Developmental cognitive neuroscience - Functional neuroimaging of the developing brain