What Is Going on with Visual Attention in Reading and Dyslexia? A Critical Review of Recent Studies

This critical review examined current issues to do with the role of visual attention in reading. To do this, we searched for and reviewed 18 recent articles, including all that were found after 2019 and used a Latin alphabet. Inspection of these articles showed that the Visual Attention Span task was run a number of times in well-controlled studies and was typically a small but significant predictor of reading ability, even after potential covariation with phonological effects were accounted for. A number of other types of tasks were used to examine different aspects of visual attention, with differences between dyslexic readers and controls typically found. However, most of these studies did not adequately control for phonological effects, and of those that did, only very weak and non-significant results were found. Furthermore, in the smaller studies, separate within-group correlations between the tasks and reading performance were generally not provided, making causal effects of the manipulations difficult to ascertain. Overall, it seems reasonable to suggest that understanding how and why different types of visual tasks affect particular aspects of reading performance is an important area for future research.

Rozdzielczość czasowa, pamięć robocza a rodzaje błędów w Teście Matryc Ravena – badanie pilotażowe

CelCelem badania pilotażowego było sprawdzenie zależności pomiędzy rozdzielczością czasową w zakresie milisekundowym, pamięcią roboczą oraz inteligencją psychometryczną z uwzględnieniem analizy jakościowej błędów w Teście Matryc Ravena w wersji dla Zaawansowanych TMZ. MetodaTrzydzieści sześć osób (24 mężczyzn i 12 kobiet, w wieku 17–19 lat) wykonało zadanie polegające na prezentowaniu par bodźców w szybkim następstwie czasowym, a następnie rozwiązywało zadanie mierzące pamięć roboczą Automated Operation Span Task Aospan oraz TMZ. Rozdzielczość czasową mierzono za pomocą progu postrzegania kolejności bodźców PPK, wyznaczanego za pomocą algorytmu adaptacyjnego dla poprawności 75%. WynikiWykazano tendencję do rzadszego popełniania błędów typu Błędna Zasada w TMZ przez osoby uzyskujące niskie wartości PPK: rho(34) = 0,46, p < 0,05. Ponadto zaobserwowano związek między wynikami Aospan i TMZ, dla procentu poprawnie odpamiętanych liter (rho(34) = 0,55, p < 0,01), zaś dla procentu poprawnie odpamiętanych sekwencji (rho(34) = 0,43, p = 0,05). KonkluzjePrezentowane badanie jest pierwszym, w którym wykazano związek czasowego opracowywania informacji na poziomie milisekund z typami błędów popełnianymi w teście inteligencji ogólnej. Osoby, które uzyskały wyższe progi postrzegania kolejności bodźców częściej stosowały przy wyborze odpowiedzi jakościowo odmienne od poprawnych reguły rozumowania, co może odzwierciedlać mniejsze zasoby pamięci roboczej potrzebne do odkrycia właściwej reguły.

The Hebb repetition effect in complex span tasks: Evidence for a shared learning mechanism with simple span tasks

The Hebb repetition effect on serial-recall task refers to the improvement in the accuracy of recall of a repeated list (e.g., repeated in every 3 trials) over random non-repeated lists. Previous research has shown that both temporal position and neighboring items need to be the same on each repetition list for the Hebb repetition effect to occur, suggesting chunking as one of its underlying mechanisms. Accordingly, one can expect absence of the Hebb repetition effect in a complex span task, given that the sequence is interrupted by distractors. Nevertheless, one study by Oberauer, Jones, and Lewandowsky (2015, Memory & Cognition, 43[6], 852–865) showed evidence of the Hebb repetition effect in a complex span task. Throughout four experiments, we confirmed the Hebb repetition effect in complex span tasks, even when we included distractors in both encoding and recall phases to avoid any resemblance to a simple span task and minimized the possibility of chunking. Results showed that the Hebb repetition effect was not affected by the distractors during encoding and recall. A transfer cycle analysis showed that the long-term knowledge acquired in the complex span task can be transferred to a simple span task. These findings provide the first insights on the mechanism behind the Hebb repetition effect in complex span tasks; it is at least partially based on the same mechanism that improves recall performance by repetition in simple span tasks.

Easy Abacus Calculation in Early Childhood to Support Executive Function: An Educational Pilot Case Study of Comparing Brain Activity in the Prefrontal Cortex

The development of executive functions is remarkable in early childhood. Therefore, research on how to support the development of executive functions is actively being conducted. It has already been indicated that executive functions are related to the prefrontal cortex. Recent evidence suggests that the prefrontal cortex is involved in mental abacus (MA). Further, the study of the abacus—the base of MA—is good for not only mathematics but also nurturing the brain. However, although the abacus is easy to learn, learning opportunities have shrunk because of the widespread use of calculators. Through this educational pilot case study, I examined whether it is possible that even easy calculations during the introduction of abacus calculation in early childhood may have an effect on executive function support. I measured the activation of cerebral blood flow in the prefrontal cortex of a young child while he worked on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV; Working Memory Index tasks (forward digit-span task, backward digit-span task, and letter–number sequencing task); and the abacus calculation task using HOT-2000 (NeU, Japan), a two-channel wearable functional near-infrared spectroscopy device. The results revealed a significant difference between the abacus calculation task and the forward digit-span task; however, there was no significant difference between the abacus calculation task and other tasks. In other words, the brain in the prefrontal cortex was more activated in the abacus task than in the forward digit-span task. Difficulty levels were found to be in the order of the forward digit-span task, backward digit-span task, and letter–number sequencing task. Thus, there is a possibility that even simple abacus calculation has a positive effect on executive functions, especially working memory support, in early childhood. This study’s results provide a breakthrough in cognitive psychology, educational psychology, neuropsychology, and other fields related to child support, which are struggling to find valuable, practical practices for children in the field (i.e., schools and homes) beyond the laboratory.

Reexamining the “Brain Drain” Effect: Does Ward et al. (2017) Replicate?

The present study was a pre-registered direct replication of Ward et al.’s (2017) second experiment (OSF pre-registration found at: https://osf.io/5fq4r). This replication assigned both smartphone location (on desk, in pocket/bag, or outside of the testing room) and smartphone power (on, or off) for a total of six conditions. Participants completed an automated operation span (OSpan) task, a cue-dependent go/no-go task, and the smartphone attachment and dependency inventory. It was hypothesized that performance on an attention-demanding task (i.e., the OSpan task) would be worse for those in closer proximity to their smartphone (on desk) and that those with greater smartphone attachment and dependency would have a larger “brain drain” effect. Using the same tasks and conditions as in Ward et al.’s (2017) second experiment, the present study found that the “brain drain” effect did not replicate: there was no difference between smartphone location conditions on performance on either the o-span task or the go/no-go task. These findings demonstrate that the mere presence of one’s smartphone may not be enough to affect cognitive performance. Understanding these effects is crucial in a time where smartphones are a basic necessity.

Does Gender Difference Play a Significant Role in Verbal and Visuospatial Working Memory Performance?

The present study investigates gender differences in working memory performance, both verbal and visuospatial working memory performance. Quasi-experimental research was conducted individually on 32 undergraduates at a public university in Malaysia, using a reading span task and rotation span task. The performance was based on the total number of correct recalled and the total time taken. Results showed a significant gender difference in the verbal and visuospatial working memory performance. The observation was based on the total time taken, in which males performed more rapidly than females in both tasks. In terms of accuracy, female participants recalled better than their male counterparts in the verbal task, which is consistent with numerous past studies. However, no gender difference was identified in the visuospatial task performance, based on the total number of correct recalled. The study also found that male participants did not show an advantage in visuospatial abilities, contradicting findings by past studies.

Influence of Working Memory Capacity on the Frequency of Self-Repairs

This article explored the influence of working memory capacity on the frequency of self-repairs. The narrative task and listening span task were used. Twenty post-graduate students participated in this study. Overall, the results of this study illustrated that the working memory is a factor of self-repairs. Speakers who have higher working memory capacity produce lesser self-repairs. This finding provides teachers with a new insight into second language teaching; that is, teachers can improve the amount of lexical knowledge when teaching students who have lower working memory in order to help them produce more accurate language during the process of L2 speech production.

Working memory capacity, and selective attention in older children with mathematics learning disabilities

Both verbal and visuospatial working memory adding to selective attention, have been examined in two groups (Mean age = 12.59 years old). One of the two groups displaying math learning disabilities (n=36), this group acts as an experimental group, and the other group without learning disabilities acts as a control group (n=36), the two groups were matched for age and IQ. The two groups presented with complex span tasks to assess working memory capacity (WMC), operation span task (OSPAN) used to assess verbal working memory capacity, symmetry span task used to assess visuospatial working memory capacity; the two previous tasks administrated automatically by using computers. Selective attention assessed in the two groups by using a colored square task (CST) that used for assessing visual selective attention and it administrated automatically. Results revealed that the performance of children with MLD was lower than the control group (typically achieving children) in both verbal and visuospatial working memory, moreover, the two groups differed in the number of correct responses (accuracy) in visual selective attention for typically achieved children, but there is no significant difference between them in response time (speed).

The role of working memory capacityin interpreting performance

This study aims to examine the relationship between working memory (WM) capacity and the performance of student interpreters defined as the quality of their interpreting output. To measure WM capacity, we administered Korean and English reading span tasks, and an operation span task. The WM scores were analysed for correlation with simultaneous interpreting (SI) and consecutive interpreting (CI) scores. The results were mixed: (1) the CI score showed no correlation with any of the WM span tasks and (2) the SI score correlated with only one WM span task, the operation span task. Given that the participants received shorter training in SI than in CI, we can tentatively conclude that interpreting performance is influenced more by WM capacity when the interpreter performs a less familiar type of interpreting. Further research is needed to find out why the reading span tasks and the operation span task showed different relationships with SI.