Abstract
To investigate the role of interference control on the development of working memory (WM) capacity, 6–12-year-old children and adults performed an N-Back task with differing WM-load and interference control demands. Correlation analyses between flanker interference scores and WM-load levels showed that interference control was only required in the 2-back condition. While WM maintenance (1-back task) reached adult accuracy levels at age 10–12, the ability to maintain information in WM during distraction (2-back-task) displayed protracted maturation into adolescence. This is suggested to reflect yet immature connections between prefrontal and posterior association areas, respectively involved in interference control and WM storage.
Notes
aNone of the participants scored within the clinical range of attention problems on the Child Behavior Checklist (children) or self report form of the ADD-H Comprehensive Teacher's Rating Scale (ACTeRS) (adults). bIQ scores differed significantly between the groups, F(3,74) = 6.43, p < .01. Bonferroni-corrected post hoc comparisons revealed that both 8–9 and 10–12-year-olds differed significantly from the group of adults (p < .01). Therefore, all analyses were performed with IQ as covariate, which revealed no altered significant levels and thus all further analyses were performed without IQ as covariate.
bSocioeconomic status (SES) was determined by CitationHollingshead (1975) occupational scale for the parent holding the higher status job (1 or 2 = unskilled or unemployed positions, 3 or 4 = skilled or semiskilled laborers, 5 or 6 = managerial professions, 8 or 9 = major professions). Parental occupation data were not available for one child in the group of 6–7- and two children in the group of 8–9-year-olds. SES was not available for adults, but all adults were university students.