Short- and long-term memory contributions to immediate serial recognition: Evidence from serial position effects

Phonological, visual, and semantic coding strategies and children's short-term picture memory span

Three experiments addressed controversies in the previous literature on the development of phonological and other forms of short-term memory coding in children, using assessments of picture memory span that ruled out potentially confounding effects of verbal input and output. Picture materials were varied in terms of phonological similarity, visual similarity, semantic similarity, and word length. Older children (6/8-year-olds), but not younger children (4/5-year-olds), demonstrated robust and consistent phonological similarity and word length effects, indicating that they were using phonological coding strategies. This confirmed findings initially reported by Conrad (1971), but subsequently questioned by other authors. However, in contrast to some previous research, little evidence was found for a distinct visual coding stage at 4 years, casting doubt on assumptions that this is a developmental stage that consistently precedes phonological coding. There was some evidence for a dual visual and phonological coding stage prior to exclusive use of phonological coding at around 5-6 years. Evidence for semantic similarity effects was limited, suggesting that semantic coding is not a key method by which young children recall lists of pictures.

The Increase in Colored Progressive Matrices Test Performance in Individuals With Down Syndrome: A Qualitative and Quantitative Review

It is well known that a normal population improves its IQ test scores by about 3 points per decade. This is called the Flynn effect and has been explained in different and sometimes contrasting ways. Few and ambiguous data are available on any Flynn effect in individuals with an atypical development, such as those with intellectual disabilities: some studies report evidence of the Flynn effect, whereas others do not. The main objective of the present study was to analyze the performance of individuals with Down syndrome (DS) compared with a sample of typically developing (TD) children in the Colored Progressive Matrices (CPM) test, which measures abstract reasoning and is commonly used to estimate IQ, to see whether a Flynn effect is present. Our results suggest that the Flynn effect in the DS population depends on the individual’s age.

The effect of semantic relatedness on immediate serial recall and serial recognition

The present study examined the effects of semantic relatedness on immediate serial recall and serial recognition. Each participant received either blocked or randomly intermixed serial recall or serial recognition trials. Replicating the findings of previous studies (e.g., Saint-Aubin, Ouellette, & Poirier, 2005), semantic relatedness boosted percentage serial recall but also increased order errors, after taking into account the proportion of correctly recalled items, regardless of their orders, in serial recall trials. In serial recognition trials, participants' responses were slower and less accurate for related lists than for unrelated lists. There were intraindividual correlations among order memory measures in serial recall versus serial recognition trials. The implications of these findings for item redintegration theories are discussed.