Age-Related Change in Visual Working Memory: A study of 55,753 Participants Aged 8 to 75

• Main Authors: James R. Brockmole, Robert H. Logie
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2013-01-01
• Series: Frontiers in Psychology
• Subjects: Internet; Ageing; binding; objects; visual working memory
• Online Access: http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00012/full

Visual working memory abilities of 55,753 individuals between the ages of 8 and 75 were assessed to provide the most fine-grain analysis of age-related change in visual working memory to date. Results showed that visual working memory changes throughout the lifespan, peaking at age 20. A sharp linear decline follows that is so severe that by age 55, adults possess poorer immediate visual memory than 8 and 9 year olds. These developmental changes were largely explained by changing visual working memory capacity coupled with small short-term visual feature binding difficulties among children and older adults.