The present study focuses on the semantic organization of material in working memory (WM). We developed a new version of the De Beni et al. task (1998), in which students memorized unrelated words from lists. In our study, we manipulated the association between words in the lists. The material was organized so as to elicit a semantic organization (categorical and thematic). The task was then administered to a group of 6- to 10-year-old children. The semantic organization of the material prompted a better recall, which depended on the type of semantic organization. In the same vein, the number of intrusion errors was influenced by the semantic links between words and was higher when words in the list were associated categorically. These results seemed to depend partly on the participants’ age, being evident only in the younger children.
How semantic organization influences primary school children’s working memory
BELACCHI, CARMEN
2017
Abstract
The present study focuses on the semantic organization of material in working memory (WM). We developed a new version of the De Beni et al. task (1998), in which students memorized unrelated words from lists. In our study, we manipulated the association between words in the lists. The material was organized so as to elicit a semantic organization (categorical and thematic). The task was then administered to a group of 6- to 10-year-old children. The semantic organization of the material prompted a better recall, which depended on the type of semantic organization. In the same vein, the number of intrusion errors was influenced by the semantic links between words and was higher when words in the list were associated categorically. These results seemed to depend partly on the participants’ age, being evident only in the younger children.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
