A compression account of development in the ability to group information in working memory

Children and adults can make more efficient use of their limited working memory capacity by reorganizing information based on prior knowledge or perceptual characteristics. The data compression approach has proven useful to relate both ways of reorganizing information because it can account for how patterns can be optimally recoded. However, this approach has never been applied to the study of how basic patterns are encoded by children. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether a compressibility metric could predict working memory performance of children aged 3 to 5 years. We present one experiment in which the level of compressibility of a sequence of colors to remember was manipulated in an immediate serial recall task. Results from a large sample of 541 children suggest that young children reorganize information on the fly, but not entirely as predicted by a compressibility metric. We discuss how more general perceptual characteristics, such as symmetry and alternation, may complement formal complexity metrics in explaining children's recall patterns.