The Impact of SES on Working Memory in Naturalistic Versus Structured Settings

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Working memory (WM) is relevant to planning, decision-making, and regulating behavior and emotions. This process undergoes important development during early childhood, and is shaped by family socioeconomic status (SES). WM, in turn, shapes children's progress in school, and has been shown to mediate the association between SES and academic achievement. Traditional laboratory assessments may fail to capture the complexity of WM behavior and conditions under which WM operates most optimally; thereby, limiting opportunity for evidence-based recommendations for education. In order to address this gap in the literature, the research team will measure the impact of SES on WM development in children 3.5 to 6 years old using parallel computerized and naturalistic play-based settings. The researchers will use a rule-based WM task, where children are instructed to match a door to a house (or a beak to a bird) based on either one (e.g, color) or two (e.g. shape and color) visual feature dimensions. In daily life, WM does not function in isolation, but is paired with motivation to succeed. Thus, in order to increase the ecological and construct validity of WM assessment in both computerized and play-based testing settings, researchers included three conditions designed to assess how engaging motivational mechanisms impacts WM performance. The Choice condition is identical to the Standard condition, but children choose the houses that they want to play with; the Reward condition is identical to the Standard except the children earn a sticker after correct trials. The Reward+Choice condition combines the Reward and Choice manipulations. A central component of the study involves determining whether the impact of SES on WM is constant across computerized and play-based settings, or whether the impact diminishes as WM tasks increase in ecological and construct validity. To address this issue, the researchers will collect data on experiences in children's lives that may mirror the computerized and play-based testing environments. SES impact on WM performance in computerized and standard assessments may be mediated by formal instruction opportunities in and outside the home (art or music classes) as well as digital device use and skill. The researchers will also collect data on experiences in children's lives that may support WM development but be independent of SES. For example, individual differences in pretend play engagement may be related to WM performance in play-based settings, independent of SES. These predictions will be tested using structural equation modeling. Findings will provide novel insights regarding optimal WM performance in young children across various levels of SES. Findings will also have implications for shaping early childhood curricula in ways that will benefit children across various levels of SES.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.