ABSTRACT
Recent research has suggested that the creation of temporary bound representations of information from different sources within working memory uniquely relates to word recognition abilities in school-age children. However, it is unclear to what extent this link is attributable specifically to the binding ability for cross-modal information. This study examined the performance of Grade 3 (8–9 years old) children on binding tasks requiring either temporary association formation of two visual items (i.e., within-modal binding) or pairs of visually presented abstract shapes and auditorily presented nonwords (i.e., cross-modal binding). Children’s word recognition skills were related to performance on the cross-modal binding task but not on the within-modal binding task. Further regression models showed that cross-modal binding memory was a significant predictor of word recognition when memory for its constituent elements, general abilities, and crucially, within-modal binding memory were taken into account. These findings may suggest a specific link between the ability to bind information across modalities within working memory and word recognition skills.
Acknowledgement
The authors thank Peng-Wen Lin for her assistance with running the experiment.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
ORCID
Richard J. Allen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1887-3016
Notes
1 We also ran a version of the binding tasks using sequences of three pairs, but this was too challenging for this age group, with children (N = 130) performing at a very low level (cross-modal: M = 0.34, SD = 0.14; within-modal: M = 0.34, SD = 0.15). The current analysis was therefore limited to length 2 data sets.