A reduced form of the CPM (A + AB): A useful tool for the assessment of children under six years of age

The progressive matrices of Raven (CPM) is a very useful test for clinicians. The CPM has three series (A, AB and B), with twelve items for each. In the present study, we showed that the B series is inappropriate for children below six years old. Therefore, we calculated norms for children between 3 and 6 years old in a reduced form of CPM (A + AB). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. © 2015, Societa Editrice il Mulino. All rights reserved

Definitional skills as a bridge towards school achievement

none4noThe general aim of the current study was to investigate the role of definitional skills in promoting primary school achievement (third- to fifth-graders) and how school learning may shape defini-tional skills. Marks from four school-subjects, linguistic (Italian and English) and scientific (Math and Science) were collected as well as scores in a Definitional Task. These two domains were cho-sen as they clearly entail the two different definition types, that is lexicographic and scientific. Re-sults indicated that scientific school-subject marks are more predictive of definitional skills than linguistic school-marks are. The opposite direction (i.e., how definitional skills are predictive of school achievement) appears less clear. In sum, results, yet preliminary, suggests that definitional skills represent a bridge towards school achievement as they promote good marks in all disci-plines. Moreover, definitional skills are predicted from levels of competence acquired especially in scientific school-subjects that request a higher degree of formal/organized learning. It is then of primary importance to promote interaction-integration between these two kind of concepts via formal schooling.openArtuso C., Palladino P.,Valentini P., Belacchi C.Artuso, C.; Palladino, P.; Valentini, P.; Belacchi, C

How semantic organisation influences primary school children’s working memory

The present study focuses on the semantic organisation of material in working memory. We developed a new measure in which students memorised unrelated words from lists. In our study, we manipulated the association between words in the lists. The material was organised so as to elicit a semantic organisation (categorical and thematic). The task was then administered to a group of 6–10-year-old children. The semantic organisation of the material prompted a better recall, which depended on the type of semantic organisation. In the same vein, the number of intrusion errors was influenced by the semantic links between words and was higher when words in the list were associated categorically. These results seemed to depend partly on the participants’ age, being evident only in the younger children. © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Grou

Effects of semantic relationship and preactivation on memory updating.

Semantic relationship modulates working memory (WM) processes by promoting recall but impairing recognition. Updating is a core mechanism of WM responsible for its stability and flexibility; it allows maintenance of relevant information while removing no-longer relevant one. To our knowledge, no studies specifically investigated how WM updating may benefit from the processing of semantically related material. In the current study, two experiments were run with this aim. In Experiment 1, we found an advantage for semantically related words (vs. unrelated) regardless of their association type (i.e., taxonomic or thematic). A second experiment was run boosting semantic association through preactivation. Findings replicated those of Experiment 1 suggesting that preactivation was effective and improved semantic superiority. In sum, we demonstrated that long-term semantic associations benefitted the updating process, or more generally, overall WM function. In addition, pre-activating semantic nodes of a given word appears likely a process supporting WM and updating; thus, this may be the mechanism favoring word process and memorization in a semantically related text

The structure of working memory and how it relates to intelligence in children

This study explored the structure of working memory, and its relationship with intelligence in 176 typically-developing children in the 4th and 5th grades at school. Different measures of working memory (WM), and intelligence (g) were administered. Confirmatory factor analyses showed that WM involves an attentional control system and storage aspects that rely on domain-specific verbal (STM-V) and visuospatial (STM-VS) resources. The structural equation models showed that WM predicts a large portion (66%) of the variance in g, confirming that the two constructs are separable but closely related in young children. Findings also showed that only WM and STM-VS are significantly related to g, while the contribution of STM-V is moderate. Theoretical implications for the relationship between WM and g are discussed

Does spatial locative comprehension predict landmark-based navigation?

In the present study we investigated the role of spatial locative comprehension in learning and retrieving pathways when landmarks were available and when they were absent in a sample of typically developing 6- to 11-year-old children. Our results show that the more proficient children are in understanding spatial locatives the more they are able to learn pathways, retrieve them after a delay and represent them on a map when landmarks are present in the environment. These findings suggest that spatial language is crucial when individuals rely on sequences of landmarks to drive their navigation towards a given goal but that it is not involved when navigational representations based on the geometrical shape of the environment or the coding of body movements are sufficient for memorizing and recalling short pathways

Grammatical gender and linguistic relativity: A systematic review

Many languages assign nouns to a grammatical gender class, such that ‘bed’ might be assigned masculine gender in one language (e.g. Italian) but feminine gender in another (e.g. Spanish). In the context of research assessing the potential for language to influence thought (the linguistic relativity hypothesis), a number of scholars have investigated whether grammatical gender assignment ‘rubs off’ on concepts themselves, such that Italian speakers might conceptualise beds as more masculine than Spanish speakers. We systematically reviewed 43 pieces of empirical research examining grammatical gender and thought, which together tested 5,895 participants. We classified the findings in terms of their support for this hypothesis, and assessed the results against parameters previously identified as potentially influencing outcomes. Overall, we found that support was strongly task- and context-dependent, and rested heavily on outcomes that have clear and equally-viable alternative explanations. We also argue that it remains unclear whether grammatical gender is in fact a useful tool for investigating relativity