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Could you beat a five-year-old in a simple memorisation task? Can you get better at remembering the names of people that just introduced themselves to you over the years? Our short-term memory changes across our lifespan. Younger children seem to perform worse on memory tasks, but their performance improves rapidly with age.
So how can we investigate short-term memory across ages? This is a task Sebastián and Hernández-Gil (2012) sought to tackle in their study on the digit span and the development of the phonological loop. Before we cover the developmental pattern of digit span study, let's take a look at the history of the digit span in psychology.
The digit span test has been used in memory research since the nineteenth century. But, when the Working Memory Model was introduced, we could identify what component of memory it specifically measured/used.
Brain strength training, flaticon.com/Freepik
The first researcher to study memory experimentally was Herman Ebbinghaus. In the nineteenth century, he conducted hundreds of experiments on himself to investigate the mechanisms of learning and forgetting. Ebbinghaus recorded how many nonsense syllables he was able to memorise quickly. Other researchers adapted the nonsense syllable span procedure, which evolved into the digit pan test, similar to the one we use in research today.
Joseph Jacobs (1887) was one of the first to investigate the number of items short-term memory can store using the digit span test.
The digit span test is used to test the capacity of short-term memory, specifically the phonological loop.
Digit span is a measure of how many digits can be held in short-term memory. A typical adult can hold 7 (+/- 2) digits. Digit span is associated with the phonological loop component of short-term memory, which holds speech-based information.
Short-term memory is a temporary memory store that holds information after it is presented. Short term memory has a limited capacity; it can only store a few items at a time. Here, an item refers to a meaningful chunk of information.
The Guinness record for recalling the number of digits for the value of 'pi' is 70000! Since people can typically recall up to 9 digits, how is it possible that some can remember thousands of them? Learning the sequence of 'pi' involves extensive rehearsal and allows for storing the items in long-term memory. Contrary to short-term memory, long-term memory has an unlimited capacity (at least, that's what we think anyway).
According to Baddeley and Hitch's (1974) Working Memory Model, the short-term memory store consists of the central executive, visuospatial sketchpad, and phonological loop.
The central executive is responsible for allocating attention to other components and performing cognitive tasks like decision making and problem-solving.
The visuospatial sketchpad is the inner eye of the system; it stores visual and spatial information.
The phonological loop is the inner ear; it is responsible for holding and reactivating verbal information using inner speech.
WorkingMemoryModel, StudySmarter Originals
Short-term memory changes throughout our life. The digit span task allows us to measure and compare these changes. Sebastián and Hernández-Gil's (2012): Developmental pattern of digit span investigated the effect age has on the development of the phonological loop, referencing the Working Memory Model.
The developmental pattern of digit span refers to the changes in how many items we can store in short-term memory as we grow up. Digit span tells us about the development of the phonological loop. In early childhood, we observe lower digit spans, that increase throughout adolescence and decrease with old age.
Digit span should increase with age as children learn to process information faster. Moreover, around the age of six, children begin to use rehearsal to refresh the information stored in short-term memory. Children start to rehearse using the inner voice component of the phonological loop. This prevents forgetting of items and improves their digit span.
Sebastián and Hernández-Gil (2012) aimed to investigate patterns of phonological loop development across the ages of 5 to 17. Researchers administered the digit span test to 570 Spanish children without any hearing, reading, or writing impairments. The digit span test was used to see how children’s ability to hold information in short-term memory changes with age and to compare this data with previous studies conducted in the UK.
The results demonstrated a continued increase in digit span across ages, suggesting that working memory develops until the age of 17.
Developmental pattern of digit span based on Sebastián and Hernández-Gil (2012), StudySmarter Originals
Old age appears to affect working memory significantly. Comparisons of the Sebastián and Hernández-Gil data with earlier studies on the elderly showed that healthy elderly participants have a digit span similar to a seven-year-old. Older people with conditions like dementia have only slightly lower digit spans, corresponding to a typical six-year-old.
Previous English developmental research showed that digit span increases in children up until the age of 15, after which it remains constant. At 15, the Anglo-Saxon participants acquired adult levels of short-term memory capacity. English studies also demonstrated generally higher digit spans for children. One explanation of these results is the length of words for Spanish digits, which tend to be longer than words for English digits.
Longer words can’t be rehearsed as many times as shorter words using inner speech. The difference in digit span only appeared after the age of six, when children start to use inner speech to rehearse information, supporting the word length explanation for the differences. Overall, we can see that language used can affect the generalisability of digit span research findings.
Some other evaluation points of Sebastián and Hernández-Gil (2012) to consider are:
Digit span is a measure of how many items we can hold in the phonological loop component of short-term memory.
A typical adult can hold 7 (+/- 2) digits in their short-term memory.
Young children have a smaller working memory capacity, which increases until adolescence and decreases with old age. This pattern appears to be universal.
Sebastián and Hernández-Gil (2012) found that Spanish children demonstrate slightly lower digit spans compared to English children. One explanation for this phenomenon is the word length of Spanish digits.
Overall, the results of Sebastián and Hernández-Gil (2012) demonstrated a continued increase in digit span across ages, suggesting that working memory continues to develop up to 17 years of age.
Digit span is a measure of how many digits can be held in short-term memory.
The digit span test is used to measure the capacity of short-term memory.
Joseph Jacobs developed the digit span test based on the previous work of Ebbinghaus.
Digit span tests show how many items you can hold in your short-term memory. The longer the sequences of random digits you can hold and recall without rehearsal, the higher the capacity of your short-term memory.
The digit span relies on the phonological loop component of short-term memory in the working memory model. The phonological loop stores speech-based information, which means that verbal ability can affect its capacity.
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