Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil - Digit Span

Aim
1. wanted to study the developmental pattern of working memory over time
2. changes from ageing. eg.'dementia'
3. analyse the developmental pattern of the phonological loop in children aged 5-17 years
4. looking at the age at which the digit span stopped 'increasing in adulthood/adolescence'
5. look at the decline of digit span in older people including those with dementia
6. to see if anglo-saxon data were replicated or if higher for spanish speakers
Procedure
1. first part
  1. gathered primary data
  2. used 5-17 year olds
  3. all born in spain
  4. none had learning difficulties
  5. control for education and cognitive differences
2. Second part
  1. used secondary data
  2. elderly people without impairment
  3. with alzheimers and fronto-temperol dementia
  4. used 25 healthier older people as a control group
  5. 25 alzheimers
  6. 9 fronto-temperol dementia
Results
1. the preschool children aged five years had a very low digit span
2. 6-8 year olds had a very similar digit span
3. the increase in one digit, occured at 9 years old and rose to 11 years old
4. older children had similar digit span to one another
5. differed from age groups above them
6. similar digit span was found in 15-17 year olds
7. researchers compared their data to data from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for children who digit span increases with age
8. the healthier older people had a higher digit span
9. alzheimers dementia participants had the lowest mean digit span
Conclusions
1. main conclusion = digit span increases with age from 5-17 years old
2. contrasts with anglo-saxon data
3. sebastian and hernandez-gil highlighted the differences in word length between Spanish and English
4. spanish digit words are longer than english digit words
5. subvocal rehearsal does not start until 7 years old
6. English studies aged 5-6, digit span was around four which matches the spanish study
7. digit span of the healthy older people was similar to that of a 7 year old - shows there is a decline in digit span with age
8. the capacity of the phonological loop seems to be affected by the age but not by dementia
Strengths
1. the results are reliable because it was compared with data in the spanish population and with other studies
2. WISC-IV data showed a very similar pattern in development - increasing up to age 17
3. careful controls were used in the study
4. they used spanish children and the spanish language - control varaibles
5. they analyse not only for actual age using school years but also for age group so they have information from which to draw conclusions
Weaknesses
1. the task is artificial - we don't generally recall lists of digits
2. lack of validity
3. although experiments lack validity because of the controls and artifically of the tasks
4. the digits are subvocalised by the spanish speakers
5. the word length had affected the digit span
6. the study was done using spanish speakers only
7. the study doesn't show at what age the decrease might start

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Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil - Digit Span

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