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

Monadische Erweiterungen von monadic NP

Fagin zeigt in seiner bahnbrechenden Arbeit, dass die Komplexitätsklasse NP mit der logischen Sprache ' existentielle Logik zweiter Ordnung' identifiziert werden kann. Ein einfaches und daher greifbares Fragment dieser Sprache ist monadic NP. Fagin bezeichnet monadic NP als '...training ground for attacking the problems in their full generality'. In dieser Arbeit werden zwei Arten von monadischen Erweiterungen von monadic NP untersucht. Der erste Teil beschäftigt sich mit schwachen built-in Relationen.Einebuilt-in Relation B heißt schwach, falls: monadic NP + B + polynomielles Padding neq NP.Es werden zwei neue Klassen schwacher built-in Relationen (unendlich teilbare-und verpackbare built-in Relationen) eingeführt. Hauptergebnis dieses Teils ist eine Klassifizierung aller bekannten schwachen built-in Relationen mittels dieser beiden Klassen. Im zweiten Teil dieser Arbeit werden monadische Abschlüsse von monadic NP betrachtet. Besonderes Interesse gilt dabei den positiven Abschluss erster Ordnung von monadic NP (kurz: PFO(monNP)). Hauptergebnis dieses Teils ist die Aussage, dass nicht-k-Färbbarkeit ( k=>3) nicht ausdrückbar ist in PFO(monNP).In 1974 Fagin showed in his groundbreaking work, that the complexity class NP corresponds with existentiel second order logic. An easy and manageable fragmentof existentiel second order logic is monadic NP. Fagin called monadic NP to be a '... training ground for attacking the problems in their full generality'. This work is discussing two ways of monadic extensions of monadic NP. The first part handles with weak built-in relations. A built-in relation B is called weak, if: monadic NP + B + polynomiel padding neq NP.Two new classes of weak built-in relations (infinitly divisible-and packable built-in relations) are introduced. The main result of this part is a classificationof all known weak built-in relations, by means of these two classes. The second part of this work deals with monadic NP. The positive first order closure of monadic NP (brief: PFO(monNP)) is of special interest. The main result of thispart is the fact, that non-k-colourability (k=>3) is not expressible in PFO(monNP)

Working memory and intellectual disabilities

Intellectual disability (ID) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that begins in childhood, characterised by intellectual and adaptive functioning deficits in conceptual (language, reading, maths, reasoning, knowledge, memory), social (empathy, friendships, interpersonal communication skills, social judgement), and practical (personal care, money management, organising school tasks) domains (DSM-5: American Psychiatric Association, 2013). ID has been described as ‘the most common developmental disorder and the most handicapping of the disorders beginning in childhood’ (Harris, 2006, p. 79), and DSM-5 requires three criteria to be met for a diagnosis of ID: Deficits in intellectual functioning (reasoning, problem solving, Working Memory, planning, abstract thinking, judgement, academic learning, learning from experience, practical understanding) in one or more skill domains (conceptual, social, practical) that are confirmed by clinical evaluation and individualised, standardised intelligence testing. This is defined as per formance levels that are two or more standard deviations below the general population (i.e. scores of less than 70) on psychometrically sound and valid, comprehensive and culturally appropriate tests. Deficits in adaptive functioning that significantly hamper the ability to meet developmental and sociocultural standards for personal independence and social responsibility. In practice, the adaptive deficits limit functioning in one or more activities of daily life, such as communication, social participation and independent living, and across multiple environments, such as home, school, work and recreation. Adaptive functioning deficits are assessed using clinical evaluation and individualised, culturally appropriate, psychometrically sound measures. Standardised measures can be used with knowledgeable informants (e.g., parent or other family member, teacher, care provider) and the individual if possible. The onset of these difficulties is during the childhood period

Dokumentation der Erhebungsinstrumente des Projekts "Persönlichkeits- und Lernentwicklung von Grundschülern" (PERLE). 1. PERLE-Instrumente: Schüler, Lehrer & Eltern (Messzeitpunkt 1)

Im vorliegenden Band 23 der Materialien zur Bildungsforschung werden Testinstrumente und Fragebögen aus der ersten Förderphase (2006-2009) des Projekts "Persönlichkeits- und Lernentwicklung von Grundschulkindern" (PERLE) vorgestellt. Insgesamt gliedert sich der Band 23 in drei Teile. Teil 1 dokumentiert die unmittelbar zu Schulbeginn (Eingangsuntersuchung) eingesetzten Testinstrumente und Fragebögen bei den Schülern, mittels derer kognitive und weitestgehend motivational-affektive Eingangsvoraussetzungen der Schülerinnen und Schüler erfasst wurden. Zudem werden die Skalen und deren zentrale Kennwerte der ersten Lehrerbefragung sowie die Skalen der ersten Elternbefragung dargestellt, welche herangezogen werden sollen, um mehrperspektivisch die Persönlichkeits- und Lernentwicklung der Schülerinnen und Schüler erklären zu können. (DIPF/Autor

Children’s Mixed-Rounding Strategy Use in Computational Estimation

Being able to perform computational estimations efficiently is an important skill. Furthermore, computational estimation experiments are used to study general principles in strategy development. Rounding strategies are common in computational estimation. However, little is known about whether and when children use a mixed-rounding strategy (i.e., both rounding up and down in one estimation) and how demanding this is in comparison to only rounding-down or only rounding-up. Therefore, we systematically varied the size of unit digits (i.e., the rightmost digit in a whole number) in 72 addition problems. These estimation problems were presented to fourth graders. Most children preferred to use mixed-rounding on mixed-unit problems and therefore adjusted their strategy choice to the individual unit digits in a calculation. Additionally, the sum of units barely influenced children’s strategy choice. On mixed-rounding calculations, the proportion of best strategy use was comparable to that of rounding-up and the latencies to produce an estimate with mixed-rounding were between those for rounding-down and rounding-up. Therefore, the mixed-rounding strategy was in the difficulty range of the two more frequently studied rounding strategies; it was also the preferred strategy for mixed-unit problems by children who adapted their estimation strategies. Based on these findings we argue that research into strategy development with estimation tasks should also include mixed-rounding to improve ecological validity

Generalisten oder Spezialisten? Bereichsspezifität und leistungsbezogene Zusammenhänge des schulischen Selbstkonzepts von Schulanfängern

In der vorliegenden Studie wird erstens untersucht, ob sich wenige Wochen nach der Einschulung bereits domänenspezifische Facetten des schulischen Selbstkonzepts (Lesen, Schreiben und Rechnen) unterscheiden lassen, und zweitens, in welchem Ausmaß sich die Selbstkonzeptfacetten Lesen und Rechnen durch Lese- und Rechenleistungen sowie durch Leistungs­einschät­zungen der Eltern vorhersagen lassen. Die Ergebnisse der konfirmatorischen Faktorenanalysen mit Selbsteinschätzungen von 693 Kindern des 1. Schuljahres zeigen, dass ein Dreifaktorenmodell mit den Facetten Lesen, Schreiben und Rechnen am besten zu den Daten passt. Des Weiteren zeigen sich schon in diesem Alter signifikante, allerdings gering ausgeprägte Zusammenhänge zwischen Leistungen bzw. elterlichen Leistungs­einschätzungen und den korrespondierenden schulischen Selbstkonzeptfacetten der Kinder. Die vom I/E-Modell postulierten negativen Pfade zwischen Leistungen und nicht-korrespondierenden Selbsteinschätzungen lassen sich nicht nachweisen. Zusammengenommen sprechen die Ergebnisse dafür, dass sich schon ca. zwei Monate nach der Einschulung verschiedene Facetten des schulischen Selbstkonzepts unterscheiden lassen, auch wenn die Facetten vergleichsweise hoch korreliert sind. Aufgrund der Zusammenhänge mit Leistungen sowie Elterneinschätzungen lässt sich vermuten, dass Erstklässlerinnen und Erstklässler beginnen, durch Perspektivübernahme sowie soziale Vergleiche gewonnene Informationen in ihr Selbstkonzept zu integrieren

Multilab Direct Replication of Flavell, Beach, and Chinsky (1966): Spontaneous Verbal Rehearsal in a Memory Task as a Function of Age

Work by Flavell, Beach, and Chinsky indicated a change in the spontaneous production of overt verbalization behaviors when comparing young children (age 5) with older children (age 10). Despite the critical role that this evidence of a change in verbalization behaviors plays in modern theories of cognitive development and working memory, there has been only one other published near replication of this work. In this Registered Replication Report, we relied on researchers from 17 labs who contributed their results to a larger and more comprehensive sample of children. We assessed memory performance and the presence or absence of verbalization behaviors of young children at different ages and determined that the original pattern of findings was largely upheld: Older children were more likely to verbalize, and their memory spans improved. We confirmed that 5- and 6-year-old children who verbalized recalled more than children who did not verbalize. However, unlike Flavell et al., substantial proportions of our 5- and 6-year-old samples overtly verbalized at least sometimes during the picture memory task. In addition, continuous increase in overt verbalization from 7 to 10 years old was not consistently evident in our samples. These robust findings should be weighed when considering theories of cognitive development, particularly theories concerning when verbal rehearsal emerges and relations between speech and 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