Showing papers by "Alan D. Baddeley published in 1994"

The children's test of nonword repetition: A test of phonological working memory

Abstract: This article presents findings from the Children's Test of Nonword Repetition (CNRep). Normative data based on its administration to over 600 children aged between four and nine years are reported. Close developmental links are established between CNRep scores and vocabulary, reading, and comprehensive skills in children during the early school years. The links between nonword repetition and language skills are shown to be consistently higher and more specific than those obtained between language skills and another simple verbal task with a significant phonological memory component, auditory digit span. The psychological mechanisms underpinning these distinctive developmental relationships between nonword repetition and language development are considered.

Developments in the concept of working memory.

Abstract: The authors summarize developments in the concept of working memory as a multicomponent system, beginning by contrasting this approach with alternative uses of the term working memory. According to a 3-component model, working memory comprises a phonological loop for manipulating and storing speech-based information and a visuospatial sketchpad that performs a similar function for visual and spatial information. Both are supervised by a central executive, which functions as an attentional control system. A simple trace-decay model of the phonological loop provides a coherent account of the effects of word length, phonemic similarity, irrelevant speech, and articulatory suppression in verbal short-term memory tasks. This model of the loop has also proved useful in the analysis of neuropsychological, developmental and, cross-cultural data. The notion of the sketchpad is supported by selective interference with imagery in normal adults and by specific neuropsychological impairment. Analysis of the central executive is illustrated by work on deficits in the ability to coordinate subproccesses in Alzheimer's disease (AD). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved)

Errorless learning in the rehabilitation of memory impaired people

Abstract: We report six experiments comparing errorful and errorless learning in the teaching of new information to neurologically impaired adults with severe memory problems. The first experiment is a group study in which amnesic subjects, young controls, and older controls were required to learn two lists of words under two conditions. One of these required subjects to generate guesses that produced incorrect responses, and the other prevented guessing—permitting only correct responses. Conditions and lists were counterbalanced across subjects. People with amnesia scored significantly higher under the errorless condition. We further explored the principle of errorless learning in five single case studies in which severely memory impaired people were required to learn information analogous to that needed in everyday life. Tasks included learning names of objects and people, learning how to programme an electronic aid, remembering orientation items, and learning new items of general knowledge. In each case...

A measure of consciousness and memory during isoflurane administration: the coherent frequency

Abstract: The coherent frequency (CF) of the auditory evoked response (AER) is derived using auditory clicks presented at frequencies in the range 5–47 Hz. CF and psychological performance were measured while seven subjects breathed isoflurane in doses increasing from 0% to 0.2%, 0.4% and 0.8% endtidal concentration and then decreasing to 0%. With increasing doses of isoflurane, CF decreased and there was a decrease in within-list recognition (WLR) and category recognition (CR) scores. There was a correlation between changes in CF and WLR (P

The Extended Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test: a measure of everyday memory performance in normal adults.

Abstract: The Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test provides a well-validated instrument for detecting everyday memory problems in patient groups. It was however designed as a screening test, and thus is insufficiently sensitive to detect mild deficits, whether due to brain damage or to the introduction of a drug or stressor. The Extended Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test (ERBMT) increases the level of difficulty by doubling the amount of material to be remembered, by combining material from Forms A and B, and Forms C and D of the original test to produce two parallel versions of the new extended test. The sensitivity of the ERBMT was assessed by comparing the performance of a middle-aged and an elderly group of normal subjects, who would be expected to show modest differences in memory performance. The subtests varied in their sensitivity to this small age difference, but when performance was assessed in terms of scaled scores that allow an overall combined measure of memory performance to be calculated, the test proved sensitive (t = 4.87, P < 0.0001), and free of ceiling and floor effects. We suggest that the ERBMT provides a promising measure of everyday memory in normal adults.

Reversing the Word-Length Effect: A Comment on Caplan, Rochon, and Waters:

Abstract: Caplan, Rochon, and Waters (1992) report a failure to observe the poorer immediate serial recall for words of longer spoken duration obtained by Baddeley, Thomson, and Buchanan (1975) and subsequen...