Item accessibility in children’s working memory: convergent evidence from 3 related paradigms

The development of working memory is typically measured by accuracy. Whilst this helps to understand age-related changes in capacity, it is not necessarily so well adapted to reveal working memory processes. Chronometry provides the opportunity to pivot more towards a consideration of processes unfolding over time during participants test performance. We focussed on the idea that working memory items are fragile, and the ability to access and reconstruct memoranda is a key factor in both the development of working memory capacity, and more complex cognition (such as reading comprehension). This study deployed different memory tasks, all potentially requiring cue-dependent search and retrieval processes. These included storage-only paradigms and a complex span paradigm that interleaves processing and storage elements. Three different response times were extracted from participants responses. The preparatory interval is a reflection of the time taken to prepare to be recalled memoranda; the interword pause reflects the time between recalled items where participants access the next item to be recalled, and the word duration indexes the articulation speed of the spoken memory item. Here, we found accuracy on these tasks remained consistent. However, each task showed a nuanced chronometric profile. Nonetheless, children’s preparatory interval, i.e., predicted both individual differences in working memory capacity and reading comprehension. In conclusion, the research highlights the importance of reconstructive retrieval processes in WMC and reading comprehension. It also further emphasises the significance of response time measures in understanding the nuances of memory tasks and their impact on understanding cognitive development.