The aim of the current study was to investigate how the taxonomic and thematic organization of semantic long-term memory affected the recall performance of adults and older participants on a complex semantic working memory (SWM) task. Taxonomic and thematic classification are the two main systems used to organize knowledge: taxonomic information is hierarchically structured and typically independent of space and time, whereas thematically grouped concepts are horizontal and strictly context-dependent. Generally, thematic connections (more intuitive and experience-based) are formed earlier in development, while taxonomic links (more abstract and logic-based) are acquired later. We set out to explore whether this developmental pattern reverses with age, hypothesizing that the more complex form of memory organization (i.e., taxonomic) would play a lesser role in facilitating recall in the old, whereas thematic organization would be better preserved. Participants (aged 18 to 85 years) were asked to recall 60 words in sets of increasing span; the words were featured in lists organized to force a taxonomic association, a thematic association, or no semantic association. The results clearly showed that task accuracy varied more across age groups for taxonomically linked items than for thematically linked ones. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

This study analyzed the potential transfer effects on reading comprehension skills of two different training programs administered to 9- to 10-year-old children attending fourth grade classes. One training program was based on a working memory updating paradigm (i.e., words, digits, sentence and text updating working memory tasks). The other program was based on metacomprehension activities focused on text structures, genres, text sensitivity, and text comprehension strategies. Performance was compared pre and post training on running memory, text updating, and reading comprehension tasks. The results showed that significant gains were obtained in both text updating and reading comprehension tasks, with a far transfer effect for both types of training. Limited nearest transfer effects suggest that gains could be due to acquisition of effective strategies in both programs, with training suitable for improving written text processing; however, performance did not differ between programs.

The aim of the study was to investigate how the biological binding between different facial dimensions, and their social and communicative relevance, may impact updating processes in working memory (WM). We focused on WM updating because it plays a key role in ongoing processing. Gaze direction and facial expression are crucial and changeable components of face processing. Direct gaze enhances the processing of approach-oriented facial emotional expressions (e.g., joy), while averted gaze enhances the processing of avoidance-oriented facial emotional expressions (e.g., fear). Thus, the way in which these two facial dimensions are combined communicates to the observer important behavioral and social information. Updating of these two facial dimensions and their bindings has not been investigated before, despite the fact that they provide a piece of social information essential for building and maintaining an internal ongoing representation of our social environment. In Experiment 1 we created a task in which the binding between gaze direction and facial expression was manipulated: high binding conditions (e.g., joy-direct gaze) were compared to low binding conditions (e.g., joy-averted gaze). Participants had to study and update continuously a number of faces, displaying different bindings between the two dimensions. In Experiment 2 we tested whether updating was affected by the social and communicative value of the facial dimension binding; to this end, we manipulated bindings between eye and hair color, two less communicative facial dimensions. Two new results emerged. First, faster response times were found in updating combinations of facial dimensions highly bound together. Second, our data showed that the ease of the ongoing updating processing varied depending on the communicative meaning of the binding that had to be updated. The results are discussed with reference to the role of WM updating in social cognition and appraisal processes.

In the current study, we investigated the role of vocabulary knowledge in the relation between working memory (WM) and reading comprehension, in a sample of 55 typically developing 8-year-old Italian children. The role of WM in comprehension is well-established, as both involve similar processes for successful task performance (i.e., active maintenance of relevant information, while inhibiting irrelevant material). Less investigated is the role of vocabulary knowledge. Here, we considered breadth, (assessed via a naming task) and depth (assessed via similarity and a vocabulary task). Our data showed the strong relation between WM and reading comprehension is mediated by vocabulary depth (but not vocabulary breadth). In addition, we also demonstrated the reverse relationship, that is WM and reading comprehension account for vocabulary depth (but not breadth). These findings have important implications for educational research and contribute to the literature on the nature of reading comprehension.

Long-term memory (LTM) associations appear as important to cognition as single memory contents. Previous studies on updating development have focused on cognitive processes and components, whereas our investigation examines how contents, associated with different LTM strength (strong or weak), might be differentially updated at different ages. To this end, we manipulated association strength of information given at encoding, in order to focus on updating pre-existing LTM associations; specifically, associations for letters. In particular, we controlled for letters usage frequency at the sub-lexical level. We used a task where we dissociated inhibition online (i.e., RTs for updating and controlling inhibition from the same set) and offline (i.e., RTs for controlling inhibition from previously updated sets). Mixed-effect analyses were conducted and showed a substantial behavioural cost when strong associations had to be dismantled online (i.e., longer RTs), compared to weak ones; here, in primary school age children. Interestingly, this effect was independent of age; in fact, children from 7–8 to 9–10 years were comparably sensitive to the strength of LTM associations in updating. However, older children were more effective in offline inhibitory control.