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The Role of Working Memory on Writing Processes

Literature has extensively demonstrated the coordination role of working memory (WM) in complex tasks such as writing. However, previous studies mostly concentrated on the relation between passive WM (e.g., WM span) components and specific writing tasks (e.g., dictation). Here, we aimed to investiga...

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Autores principales: De Vita, Francesca, Schmidt, Susanna, Tinti, Carla, Re, Anna Maria
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8430238/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34512490
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.738395
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author De Vita, Francesca
Schmidt, Susanna
Tinti, Carla
Re, Anna Maria
author_facet De Vita, Francesca
Schmidt, Susanna
Tinti, Carla
Re, Anna Maria
author_sort De Vita, Francesca
collection PubMed
description Literature has extensively demonstrated the coordination role of working memory (WM) in complex tasks such as writing. However, previous studies mostly concentrated on the relation between passive WM (e.g., WM span) components and specific writing tasks (e.g., dictation). Here, we aimed to investigate the relationship between different writing skills and the performance on a WM updating task measuring the more active components of WM. From a pool of 160 Italian pupils (grades 3–5), we selected 46 children divided in two groups based on their WM updating performance. The first group consisted of 21 children with low WM updating performance (≤10th percentile), the second group consisted of 25 children with high WM updating performance (≥90th percentile). All children were tested on a battery of writing tasks to assess writing speed, orthographic skills, and competences in expressive writing. MANOVAs and a discriminant analysis were computed to assess group differences and the contribution of the different writing tests in correctly predicting group membership. The results revealed that children with high WM updating performance scored significantly higher than children with low WM updating performance on most of the writing tasks. These results highlight the relevant role of the active components of WM on writing processes. In addition, they suggest that the improvement of writing skills should rely not only on the training of the specific processes implied in this complex task, but also on the training of the cognitive processes that support them, such as active WM processes.
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spelling pubmed-84302382021-09-11 The Role of Working Memory on Writing Processes De Vita, Francesca Schmidt, Susanna Tinti, Carla Re, Anna Maria Front Psychol Psychology Literature has extensively demonstrated the coordination role of working memory (WM) in complex tasks such as writing. However, previous studies mostly concentrated on the relation between passive WM (e.g., WM span) components and specific writing tasks (e.g., dictation). Here, we aimed to investigate the relationship between different writing skills and the performance on a WM updating task measuring the more active components of WM. From a pool of 160 Italian pupils (grades 3–5), we selected 46 children divided in two groups based on their WM updating performance. The first group consisted of 21 children with low WM updating performance (≤10th percentile), the second group consisted of 25 children with high WM updating performance (≥90th percentile). All children were tested on a battery of writing tasks to assess writing speed, orthographic skills, and competences in expressive writing. MANOVAs and a discriminant analysis were computed to assess group differences and the contribution of the different writing tests in correctly predicting group membership. The results revealed that children with high WM updating performance scored significantly higher than children with low WM updating performance on most of the writing tasks. These results highlight the relevant role of the active components of WM on writing processes. In addition, they suggest that the improvement of writing skills should rely not only on the training of the specific processes implied in this complex task, but also on the training of the cognitive processes that support them, such as active WM processes. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-08-27 /pmc/articles/PMC8430238/ /pubmed/34512490 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.738395 Text en Copyright © 2021 De Vita, Schmidt, Tinti and Re. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
De Vita, Francesca
Schmidt, Susanna
Tinti, Carla
Re, Anna Maria
The Role of Working Memory on Writing Processes
title The Role of Working Memory on Writing Processes
title_full The Role of Working Memory on Writing Processes
title_fullStr The Role of Working Memory on Writing Processes
title_full_unstemmed The Role of Working Memory on Writing Processes
title_short The Role of Working Memory on Writing Processes
title_sort role of working memory on writing processes
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8430238/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34512490
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.738395
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