Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 25, 2026

Assessing Working Memory in Children: The Comprehensive Assessment Battery for Children – Working Memory (CABC-WM)
Published on: June 12, 2017
Working memory span development: a time-based resource-sharing model account
Pierre Barrouillet1, Nathalie Gavens, Evie Vergauwe
1Department of Psychology, Universite de Geneve, Geneve, Switzerland. Pierre.Barrouillet@pse.unige.ch
Abstract:
The time-based resource-sharing model (P. Barrouillet, S. Bernardin, & V. Camos, 2004) assumes that during complex working memory span tasks, attention is frequently and surreptitiously switched from processing to reactivate decaying memory traces before their complete loss. Three experiments involving children from 5 to 14 years of age investigated the role of this reactivation process in developmental differences in working memory spans. Though preschoolers seem to adopt a serial control without any attempt to refresh stored items when engaged in processing, the reactivation process is efficient from age 7 onward and increases in efficiency until late adolescence, underpinning a sizable part of developmental differences.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Working Memory
Information Processing Approach
Understanding Memory
Chunking and Rehearsal in Sensory Memory
Storage
System of Memory

