{"id":2149,"date":"2015-03-11T11:08:15","date_gmt":"2015-03-11T03:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.appliedpsyj.org\/journal\/?p=2149"},"modified":"2015-03-11T11:08:29","modified_gmt":"2015-03-11T03:08:29","slug":"the-role-of-attentional-control-in-working-memory-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.appliedpsyj.org.tw\/journal\/?p=2149","title":{"rendered":"The Role of Attentional Control in Working Memory Development"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hsiang-Chun Chen<\/strong>
\nDepartment of Psychology National Chung Cheng University
\nWen-Chi Chiang<\/strong>
\nDepartment of Psychology National Chung Cheng University<\/p>\n

This research investigates the role of attentional control in the development of working memory. The working memory capacity of elementary-school children was measured by the reading digit-span task, and their attentional control, response tendency inhibition, distracting stimuli inhibition, response rule switching, and attentional focus switching were measured by the Dots task and the Flanker task. The results showed that the development of working memory in school-age children (ages 6 to 11) were related to attentional resources and attentional control. More specifically, for Grades 1 – 6 group, working memory capacity was found to be correlated with the ability to inhibit response tendency. For the Grade 3 – 6 group, the ability to switch between attentional foci was found to be correlated with working memory capacity. Hierarchical regression analyses further revealed that age differences account for the variance in the working memory test scores for first and second graders, but not for third to sixth graders. Importantly, after age was controlled for, the attentional focus switching ability index continued to account for the variance in working memory test scores for the older group, but the response tendency inhibition index no longer accounted for the variance in the working memory test scores for the whole group. These findings suggest that attentional control, specifically attentional focus switching, plays an important role in the functioning of working memory between ages 8 and 11 years, whereas working memory functions at younger ages is mainly associated with maturation-based influences.<\/p>\n

Keywords: working memory development, attentional control, inhibition, executive functions, elementary school children<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hsiang-Chun Chen Department of Psychology National Chun …<\/span> Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[141],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-141"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t