Spatial working memory is enhanced in children by differential outcomes

Working memory (WM) is essential to academic achievement. Any enhancement of WM abilities may improve children's school performance. We tested the usefulness of the differential outcomes procedure (DOP) to enhance typically developing children's performance on a spatial WM task. The DOP involves a conditional discriminative learning task in which a correct choice response to a specific stimulus-stimulus association is reinforced with a particular reinforcer (outcome). We adapted a spatial memory task to be used with the DOP. Participants had to learn and retain in their WM four target locations of eight possible locations where a shape could be presented. Two groups of 5- and 7-year-old children performed the low-attentional version of the spatial task, and an additional group of 7-year-old children performed the high-attentional version. The results showed that compared with the standard non-differential outcomes procedure (NOP), the DOP produced better memory-based performance in 5-year-old children with the low-attentional task and in 7-year-old children with the high-attentional task. Additionally, delay intervals impaired performance in the NOP but not in the DOP. These findings suggest that the DOP may be a useful complement to other WM intervention programs targeted to improve children's academic performance at school

Validation and psychometric analysis of the Internet Addiction Test in Spanish among college students

BACKGROUND: The wide use of the Internet in the workplace, academic or social field, can have an impact on daily life. One of the most used questionnaires worldwide to analyse these problems is the Internet Addiction Test (IAT). Our aim was to validate a Spanish version of the IAT and analyse its psychometric properties. METHODS: Population of study were college students participating in the uniHcos project (Universities of Granada, Huelva, Jaén, León, Salamanca, and Vigo). The questionnaire was translated and back-translated by two native English speakers. Reliability of scores was analysed using Pearson's correlation coefficient and agreement was analysed using the Bland-Altman and Kappa techniques. Test dimensions were analysed by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. RESULTS: The reliability of scores was good (r = 0.899, Kappa = 0.650 and mean difference using Bland-Altman = -3.5). The psychometric assessment identified two factors (Emotional Investment; Performance and Time Management) which explained 55 % of the variance (total internal consistency of 0.91) and only 19 items. The confirmatory analysis showed an acceptable goodness of fit, especially when items 6 and 8 were related (RMSEA = 0.07 90%IC = 0.06 - 0.08; WRMR = 1.01, CFI = 0.96; TLI = 0.95). The two dimensions were negatively correlated with age and positively correlated with time spent online, especially for the purposes of leisure and entertainment. DISCUSSION: The results show good reliability and psychometric properties of the Spanish version of IAT with a two-dimensional solution. This result is partially in concordance with previous validations of the IAT in other languages that have found uni- and multi-dimensional solutions using different methodologies. Moreover, we want to highlight the possibility that some item of this questionnaire is outdated due to the technological and lifestyles changes and should be not taken into account. CONCLUSION: The reliability and psychometric properties obtained in this study support the conclusion that this Spanish short version of the IAT represents a useful tool for the analysis of problems arising from misuse of the Internet