Lexical access speed and the development of phonological recoding during immediate serial recall

A recent Registered Replication Report (RRR) of the development of verbal rehearsal during serial recall revealed that children verbalized at younger ages than previously thought, but did not identify sources of individual differences. Here, we use mediation analysis to reanalyze data from the 934 children ranging from 5 to 10 years old from the RRR for that purpose. From ages 5 to 7, the time taken for a child to label pictures (i.e. isolated naming speed) predicted the child’s spontaneous use of labels during a visually presented serial reconstruction task, despite no need for spoken responses. For 6- and 7-year-olds, isolated naming speed also predicted recall. The degree to which verbalization mediated the relation between isolated naming speed and recall changed across development. All relations dissipated by age 10. The same general pattern was observed in an exploratory analysis of delayed recall for which greater demands are placed on rehearsal for item maintenance. Overall, our findings suggest that spontaneous phonological recoding during a standard short-term memory task emerges around age 5, increases in efficiency during the early elementary school years, and is sufficiently automatic by age 10 to support immediate serial recall in most children. Moreover, the findings highlight the need to distinguish between phonological recoding and rehearsal in developmental studies of short-term memory

Lexical access speed and the development of phonological recoding during immediate serial recall

A recent Registered Replication Report (RRR) of the development of verbal rehearsal during serial recall revealed that children verbalized at younger ages than previously thought, but did not identify sources of individual differences. Here, we use mediation analysis to reanalyze data from the 934 children ranging from 5 to 10 years old from the RRR for that purpose. From ages 5 to 7, the time taken for a child to label pictures (i.e. isolated naming speed) predicted the child’s spontaneous use of labels during a visually presented serial reconstruction task, despite no need for spoken responses. For 6- and 7-year-olds, isolated naming speed also predicted recall. The degree to which verbalization mediated the relation between isolated naming speed and recall changed across development. All relations dissipated by age 10. The same general pattern was observed in an exploratory analysis of delayed recall for which greater demands are placed on rehearsal for item maintenance. Overall, our findings suggest that spontaneous phonological recoding during a standard short-term memory task emerges around age 5, increases in efficiency during the early elementary school years, and is sufficiently automatic by age 10 to support immediate serial recall in most children. Moreover, the findings highlight the need to distinguish between phonological recoding and rehearsal in developmental studies of short-term memory

The interplay of landscape composition and configuration: new pathways to manage functional biodiversity and agroecosystem services across Europe

Managing agricultural landscapes to support biodiversity and ecosystem services is a key aim of a sustainable agriculture. However, how the spatial arrangement of crop fields and other habitats in landscapes impacts arthropods and their functions is poorly known. Synthesising data from 49 studies (1515 landscapes) across Europe, we examined effects of landscape composition (% habitats) and configuration (edge density) on arthropods in fields and their margins, pest control, pollination and yields. Configuration effects interacted with the proportions of crop and non‐crop habitats, and species’ dietary, dispersal and overwintering traits led to contrasting responses to landscape variables. Overall, however, in landscapes with high edge density, 70% of pollinator and 44% of natural enemy species reached highest abundances and pollination and pest control improved 1.7‐ and 1.4‐fold respectively. Arable‐dominated landscapes with high edge densities achieved high yields. This suggests that enhancing edge density in European agroecosystems can promote functional biodiversity and yield‐enhancing ecosystem services

Outcome after bilateral deep vein thrombosis

Background: The aim of our study was to assess how often deep vein thrombosis (DVT) occurs bilaterally and if this has an impact on the recurrence rate of thromboembolic disease and on the occurrence of malignant tumors. Additionally, the occurrence of pulmonary embolism and mortality of patients was assessed. Patients and methods: For this observational study, we retrospectively screened all patient's records for DVT, investigated between 2000 and 2017. 2409 patients with the diagnosis of DVT were found. The patients aged between 18 and 89 years old in 2017, received a follow-up questionnaire, asking for thromboembolic recurrence, malignant tumors and pulmonary embolism. 755 patients were included in the follow-up cohort (604 with unilateral, 151 with bilateral DVT). We performed nonparametric tests to assess two group analysis. Results: Bilateral DVT occurred in 19% of the patients in this cohort. Patients with bilateral DVT develop significantly more often cancer, either at the time of diagnosis or in the follow up, compared to patients with unilateral DVT (22.5% vs. 15.4%, p=0.036). They also endure significantly more often pulmonary embolism simultaneously (33.8% vs. 20.8%, p<0.001). Patients with bilateral DVT were significantly older (median 69 years) than patients with unilateral DVT (median 63 years, p<0.001). In addition, patients with bilateral DVT show a higher mortality (9.1% vs. 5.2%, p=0.002), a higher recurrence rate could not be observed. Conclusions: Bilateral DVT is more common than published so far. Patients with bilateral DVT suffer more often from malignant tumors, and are more often diagnosed with pulmonary embolism. The patients with bilateral DVT are older and have a higher mortality. Further investigations should address the issue of recurrent thromboembolic disease in a prospective cohort study

Isolated Naming Speed and development of Serial Recall

This project was a re-analysis of data collected as part of Elliott, E. M., Morey, C. C., AuBuchon, A. M., Cowan, N., Jarrold, C., Adams, E. J., ... &amp; Voracek, M. (2021). Multilab Direct Replication of Flavell, Beach, and Chinsky (1966): Spontaneous Verbal Rehearsal in a Memory Task as a Function of Age. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 4(2), 25152459211018187