CASE STUDY:

GATHERCOLE
ET AL.
Amraa & Sayuni
AGENDA
Aim of the study
Procedure
Findings
Conclusion
Gathercole et al. 3

AIM
The study examines the structure and development of working
memory in children aged 4-15 using multiple assessments of the
central executive, phonological loop, and visuo-spatial
sketchpad components.
Gathercole et al. 4

PROCEDURE
Over 700 students aged 4-15 from schools in the southwest of England comprised the sample, and the children were
split into five separate age groups.
Children had their parents’ permission and completed the following tests:
• Digit recall, Word list recall and Non-word list recall this was to test the storage capacity of the phonological loop.
• Backward digit recall, listening recall (6 years and over) and counting recall (6 years and over), to test the central
executive's processing and the phonological loop's storage capacity.
• Block recall (tapping a sequence of blocks in imitation of the researcher), visual patterns test and mazes test (6
years and over), to test the capacity of the visuospatial sketchpad.

Each child was tested individually in three sessions conducted over a period of 5 to 10 days. The order of test
administration was held constant across children and was designed to vary the nature of the memory demands within
each session.
Gathercole et al. 5

FINDINGS
 A series of analyses of variance was
conducted on the data, according to
age and gender. The three verbal-
storage-only measures showed a
highly significant effect of age
(p<0.001).
 Performance increased linearly from
4-14 years and levelled off between
14 and 15 years of age. There were
only weak and non-significant
correlations between the verbal and
visuo-spatial measures.
Gathercole et al. 6

CONCLUSION
 The developmental functions for measures
associated with the phonological loop, the
central executive, and the visuo-spatial
sketchpad were found to be very similar,
showing linear increases in performance from
4 years through to age 15.
 The structure of the adult working memory
model (comprising the phonological loop, the
visuo-spatial sketchpad, and the central
executive) provided a good account of the
measures of short-term memory from 6 years
onward. It seems clear that the adult WMM
model also applied to children above 6 years
of age.
 The children who were aged only 4-5 years
were not tested sufficiently on the processing
of the central executive to draw firm
conclusions regarding this.
Gathercole et al. 7

EVALUATION
Strengths:

 A carefully-controlled quasi-experiment using a large number of participants.

 Focused precisely on the three major components of the WMM and tested each
multiple times.
 Could be used to try and explain K.F.’s improved performance on digits (numbers)
over words, as number recall was consistently higher for children of all ages, and,
therefore, numbers would seem to be easier to recall generally.

Limitations:

 Although a large number of children were tested, they were all from the same
region of England, and so the external validity of the results may be questioned.
Previous cross-cultural research, such as that conducted by Cole and Scribner in the
1970s, has found that children from different cultures retain information in STM in
different ways. Cross-cultural comparison is needed
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