Matching Items (5)
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- All Subjects: Language disorders in children
- All Subjects: Short-term Memory
- Creators: Gray, Shelley
- Creators: Wingert, Kimberly Marie
- Member of: ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Description
Frequency effects favoring high print-frequency words have been observed in frequency judgment memory tasks. Healthy young adults performed frequency judgment tasks; one group performed a single task while another group did the same task while alternating their attention to a secondary task (mathematical equations). Performance was assessed by correct and error responses, reaction times, and accuracy. Accuracy and reaction times were analyzed in terms of memory load (task condition), number of repetitions, effect of high vs. low print-frequency, and correlations with working memory span. Multinomial tree analyses were also completed to investigate source vs. item memory and revealed a mirror effect in episodic memory experiments (source memory), but a frequency advantage in span tasks (item memory). Interestingly enough, we did not observe an advantage for high working memory span individuals in frequency judgments, even when participants split their attention during the dual task (similar to a complex span task). However, we concluded that both the amount of attentional resources allocated and prior experience with an item affect how it is stored in memory.
ContributorsPeterson, Megan Paige (Author) / Azuma, Tamiko (Thesis advisor) / Gray, Shelley (Committee member) / Liss, Julie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Identification of primary language impairment (PLI) in sequential bilingual children is challenging because of the interaction between PLI and second language (L2) proficiency. An important step in improving the accurate diagnosis of PLI in bilingual children is to investigate how differences in L2 performance are affected by a length of L2 exposure and how L2 assessment contributes to differentiation between children with and without PLI at different L2 proficiency levels. Sixty one children with typical language development (TD) ages 5;3-8 years and 12 children with PLI ages 5;5-7;8 years participated. Results revealed that bilingual children with and without PLI, who had between 1 and 3 years of L2 exposure, did not differ in mean length of utterance (MLU), number of different words, percent of maze words, and performance on expressive and receptive grammatical tasks in L2. Performance on a grammaticality judgment task by children with and without PLI demonstrated the largest effect size, indicating that it may potentially contribute to identification of PLI in bilingual populations. In addition, children with PLI did not demonstrate any association between the length of exposure and L2 proficiency, suggesting that they do not develop their L2 proficiency in relation to length of exposure in the same manner as children with TD. Results also indicated that comprehension of grammatical structures and expressive grammatical task in L2 may contribute to differentiation between the language ability groups at the low and intermediate-high proficiency levels. The discriminant analysis with the entire sample of bilingual children with and without PLI revealed that among L2 measures, only MLU contributed to the discrimination between the language ability groups. However, poor classification accuracy suggested that MLU alone is not a sufficient predictor of PLI. There were significant differences among L2 proficiency levels in children with TD in MLU, number of different words, and performance on the expressive and receptive grammatical tasks in L2, indicating that L2 proficiency level may potentially impact the differentiation between language difficulties due to typical L2 acquisition processes and PLI.
ContributorsSmyk, Ekaterina (Author) / Restrepo, Maria Adelaida (Thesis advisor) / Gorin, Joanna (Committee member) / Gray, Shelley (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Individual differences in working memory capacity partly arise from variability in attention control, a process influenced by negative emotional content. Thus, individual differences in working memory capacity should be predictive of differences in the ability to regulate attention in emotional contexts. To address this hypothesis, a complex-span working memory task (symmetry span) was modified so that negative arousing images or neutral images subtended the background during the encoding phase. Across three experiments, negative arousing images impaired working memory encoding relative to neutral images, resulting in impoverished symmetry span scores. Additionally, in Experiment 3, both negative and arousing images captured attention and led to increased hit rates in a subsequent recognition task. Contrary to the primary hypothesis, individual differences in working memory capacity derived from three complex span tasks failed to moderate the effect of negative arousing images on working memory encoding across two large scale studies. Implications for theories of working memory and attention control in emotional contexts will be discussed.
ContributorsWingert, Kimberly Marie (Author) / Brewer, Gene A. (Thesis advisor) / Amazeen, Eric (Committee member) / Killeen, Peter (Committee member) / Goldinger, Stephen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Working memory capacity and fluid intelligence are important predictors of performance in educational settings. Thus, understanding the processes underlying the relation between working memory capacity and fluid intelligence is important. Three large scale individual differences experiments were conducted to determine the mechanisms underlying the relation between working memory capacity and fluid intelligence. Experiments 1 and 2 were designed to assess whether individual differences in strategic behavior contribute to the variance shared between working memory capacity and fluid intelligence. In Experiment 3, competing theories for describing the underlying processes (cognitive vs. strategy) were evaluated in a comprehensive examination of potential underlying mechanisms. These data help inform existing theories about the mechanisms underlying the relation between WMC and gF. However, these data also indicate that the current theoretical model of the shared variance between WMC and gF would need to be revised to account for the data in Experiment 3. Possible sources of misfit are considered in the discussion along with a consideration of the theoretical implications of observing those relations in the Experiment 3 data.
ContributorsWingert, Kimberly Marie (Author) / Brewer, Gene A. (Thesis advisor) / McNamara, Danielle (Thesis advisor) / McClure, Samuel (Committee member) / Redick, Thomas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Research suggests that some children with primary language impairment (PLI)
have difficulty with certain aspects of executive function; however, most studies examining executive function have been conducted using tasks that require children to use language to complete the task. As a result, it is unclear whether poor performance on executive function tasks was due to language impairment, to executive function deficits, or both. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether preschoolers with PLI have deficits in executive function by comprehensively examining inhibition, updating, and mental set shifting using tasks that do and do not required language to complete the tasks.
Twenty-two four and five-year-old preschoolers with PLI and 30 age-matched preschoolers with typical development (TD) completed two sets of computerized executive function tasks that measured inhibition, updating, and mental set shifting. The first set of tasks were language based and the second were visually-based. This permitted us to test the hypothesis that poor performance on executive function tasks results from poor executive function rather than language impairment. A series of one-way analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) were completed to test whether there was a significant between-group difference on each task after controlling for attention scale scores. In each analysis the between-group factor was group and the covariate was attention scale scores.
Results showed that preschoolers with PLI showed difficulties on a broad range of linguistic and visual executive function tasks even with scores on an attention measure covaried. Executive function deficits were found for linguistic inhibition, linguistic and visual updating, and linguistic and visual mental set shifting. Overall, findings add to evidence showing that the executive functioning deficits of children with PLI is not limited to the language domain, but is more general in nature. Implications for early assessment and intervention will be discussed.
have difficulty with certain aspects of executive function; however, most studies examining executive function have been conducted using tasks that require children to use language to complete the task. As a result, it is unclear whether poor performance on executive function tasks was due to language impairment, to executive function deficits, or both. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether preschoolers with PLI have deficits in executive function by comprehensively examining inhibition, updating, and mental set shifting using tasks that do and do not required language to complete the tasks.
Twenty-two four and five-year-old preschoolers with PLI and 30 age-matched preschoolers with typical development (TD) completed two sets of computerized executive function tasks that measured inhibition, updating, and mental set shifting. The first set of tasks were language based and the second were visually-based. This permitted us to test the hypothesis that poor performance on executive function tasks results from poor executive function rather than language impairment. A series of one-way analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) were completed to test whether there was a significant between-group difference on each task after controlling for attention scale scores. In each analysis the between-group factor was group and the covariate was attention scale scores.
Results showed that preschoolers with PLI showed difficulties on a broad range of linguistic and visual executive function tasks even with scores on an attention measure covaried. Executive function deficits were found for linguistic inhibition, linguistic and visual updating, and linguistic and visual mental set shifting. Overall, findings add to evidence showing that the executive functioning deficits of children with PLI is not limited to the language domain, but is more general in nature. Implications for early assessment and intervention will be discussed.
ContributorsYang, Huichun (Author) / Gray, Shelley (Thesis advisor) / Restrepo, Maria (Committee member) / Azuma, Tamiko (Committee member) / Green, Samuel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015