Abstract
<p class="Default" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px; text-align:justify; text-indent:24pt"><span style="font-size:medium"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""><span style="color:black"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="font-variant-caps:normal"><span style="font-weight:400"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="orphans:auto"><span style="text-transform:none"><span style="white-space:normal"><span style="widows:auto"><span style="word-spacing:0px"><span style="text-decoration:none">Age-related increases in the efficiency of refreshing information during complex working memory span tasks have recently been found in Western children from the age of 6 years onwards (Barrouillet et al., 2009; Oftinger & Camos, 2016). We investigated whether an earlier age could be observed in Mandarin-speaking children given that they were found to outperform Western counterparts on various executive function tasks in which working memory was one of the required cognitive skills (e.g., Sabbagh et al., 2006). One hundred and thirty-three Mandarin-speaking children aged 4 to 7 years (60 girls) took part in the experiment. There were 45 children aged 4 (<i>M</i> = 55.44 months, <i>SD</i> = 2.83), 45 children aged 5 (<i>M</i> = 63.64 months, <i>SD</i> = 3.02), and 43 children aged 7 (<i>M</i> = 87.98 months, <i>SD</i> = 3.43). Each age group was further divided into 3 subgroups, matching for their nonverbal IQ and listening comprehension score. Each subgroup was then randomly assigned to one of Camos and Barrouillet’s (2011) three animal-color span tasks that differed in either the duration or the attentional demand of the processing episodes.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p class="Default" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px; text-align:justify; text-indent:24pt"><meta charset="UTF-8" />In Task A, each to-be-remembered animal was followed by a processing episode that required children to name the color of one smiley presented on screen within a 4-second interanimal interval. Task B involved a processing episode of two-color naming within the same 4-second interval (i.e., high attentional demand). Task C involved a processing episode of two-color naming within an 8-second interval (i.e., longer duration but same attentional demand as Task A). Number of animals in a series increased until children failed to recall four series of the same number of animals. Following Barrouillet et al. (2009), each correctly recall series counted as one quarter and the total number of quarters constituted a span score.</p><p class="Default" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px; text-align:justify; text-indent:24pt">Results showed that the mean spans of both 5- and 7-year-olds reduced as the attentional demand of the processing episodes increased. However, the mean spans of 5-year-olds did not reduced further when the duration of the processing episodes increased. Moreover, the mean spans of 4-year-olds were not affected by the attentional demand nor the duration of the processing episodes. These findings suggested that both 5- and 7-year-olds may have engaged in refreshing memorized animals when the attentional demand of the processing episode was low, providing support for the Time-Based Resource-Sharing (TBRS) model suggested by Barrouillet et al. (2004). However, instead of being affected by the duration of the processing episodes, 5-year-olds may have been interfered by the complexity of the processing episodes so they were not as effective as 7-year-olds in refreshing memorized animals. We thus conclude that Mandarin-speakingchildren may advance in the development of active refreshing as a working memory strategy and a revision of the TBRS model may be necessary to incorporate developmental evidence across culture.</p>