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Development of Social Working Memory in Preschoolers and Its Relation to Theory of Mind
Author(s) -
He Jie,
Guo Dong,
Zhai Shuyi,
Shen Mowei,
Gao Zaifeng
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/cdev.13025
Subject(s) - psychology , working memory , theory of mind , memorization , cognition , social cognition , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , cognitive development , short term memory , social cognitive theory , neuroscience
Social working memory (WM) has distinct neural substrates from canonical cognitive WM (e.g., color). However, no study, to the best of our knowledge, has yet explored how social WM develops. The current study explored the development of social WM capacity and its relation to theory of mind (ToM). Experiment 1 had sixty‐four 3‐ to 6‐year‐olds memorize 1–5 biological motion stimuli, the processing of which is considered a hallmark of social cognition. The social WM capacity steadily increased between 3‐ and 6‐year‐olds, with the increase between 4 and 5 years being sharp. Furthermore, social WM capacity positively predicted preschoolers' ToM scores, while nonsocial WM capacity did not; this positive correlation was particularly strong among 4‐year‐olds (Experiment 2, N = 144).