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Visuospatial Working Memory Paper

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Introduction
Murner-Lavanchy et al (2014) wondered whether there was a difference in visuospatial working memory in children that were born very preterm and those who were born at a normal time. The definition of working memory that they use for this study is the ability to encode and actively process task relevant information in mind over a short period of time. Working memory is very important in helping to meet the challenges of daily life and the performance of academic tasks. This is showing that working memory capacity is essential for the cognitive development throughout childhood. The aim of this study was to investigate the visuospatial working memory network in a relatively large sample of very preterm and term born children comparable for age, …show more content…
They then went on to hypothesize that very preterm born children show alterations in visuospatial working memory activation when compared to term born controls.
Methods
For this experiment the authors recruited a group of 41 very preterm born children and also 36 healthy term born children. All of the children included in this study were between the ages of 7-12. On the first visit for this study, all the children needed to complete a neuropsychological test battery. This battery included an IQ test and a learning and memory test. The IQ test that was used in this study was the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children or WISC for short. The authors then had to index the scores. They did this by calculating the individual scores from the seven subtests included in the WISC and putting them together to form the total score. In the initial visit the authors also found working memory performance by using a visuospatial shape location test. This was done by showing the children different shapes on a grid and then removed. Once removed the children had to place their own shape in the location it was on the grid. As the number of trials increased for each individual

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