Working memory capacity and self-cues: Consistent benefits in children and adults

Zahra Ahmed; Janet F. McLean; Kevin Allan; Sheila J. Cunningham

doi:10.1111/bjop.12778

Working memory capacity and self-cues: Consistent benefits in children and adults

Zahra Ahmed^* (Corresponding Author)
, Janet F. McLean
, Kevin Allan
, Sheila J. Cunningham^* (Corresponding Author)

^*Corresponding author for this work

Psychology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

Abstract From attentional prioritization to enhanced memory, self-cues trigger a variety of effects within human cognition. Recent work suggests that self-reference may also enhance working memory, possibly via attentional prioritization. However, there is no direct evidence that self-cues enhance working memory capacity, or that such boosts covary with individuals' attentional function. Here, we provide the first direct evidence of enhanced working memory capacity for self-referential cues, independent of attentional processing. We adapted a verbal working memory complex span to create a ?Self? condition (featuring the participant's own name), ?Other? condition (featuring a non-self-name), and Control condition (with no name), in 7?9-year-old children (Exp.1, N?=?71) and adults (Exp.2, N?=?52). In both experiments, the Self condition elicited significantly higher spans than the other conditions (Exp 1: p?

Original language	English
Journal	British Journal of Psychology
Volume	116
Issue number	3
Early online date	14 Feb 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12778
Publication status	Published - Aug 2025

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/srzfq/.

Funding

SC and JM were supported by a research grant [ES/T000465/1] from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), which we gratefully acknowledge.

Funders	Funder number
Economic and Social Research Council	ES/T000465/1

Keywords

binding
capacity
self-cues
self-prioritization
working memory

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10.1111/bjop.12778Licence: CC BY

Ahmed_etal_BJP_Working_memory_capacity_VOR
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Final published version, 527 KBLicence: CC BY

https://osf.io/srzfq/Licence: Unspecified

Cite this

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title = "Working memory capacity and self-cues: Consistent benefits in children and adults",

abstract = "Abstract From attentional prioritization to enhanced memory, self-cues trigger a variety of effects within human cognition. Recent work suggests that self-reference may also enhance working memory, possibly via attentional prioritization. However, there is no direct evidence that self-cues enhance working memory capacity, or that such boosts covary with individuals' attentional function. Here, we provide the first direct evidence of enhanced working memory capacity for self-referential cues, independent of attentional processing. We adapted a verbal working memory complex span to create a ?Self? condition (featuring the participant's own name), ?Other? condition (featuring a non-self-name), and Control condition (with no name), in 7?9-year-old children (Exp.1, N?=?71) and adults (Exp.2, N?=?52). In both experiments, the Self condition elicited significantly higher spans than the other conditions (Exp 1: p?",

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N2 - Abstract From attentional prioritization to enhanced memory, self-cues trigger a variety of effects within human cognition. Recent work suggests that self-reference may also enhance working memory, possibly via attentional prioritization. However, there is no direct evidence that self-cues enhance working memory capacity, or that such boosts covary with individuals' attentional function. Here, we provide the first direct evidence of enhanced working memory capacity for self-referential cues, independent of attentional processing. We adapted a verbal working memory complex span to create a ?Self? condition (featuring the participant's own name), ?Other? condition (featuring a non-self-name), and Control condition (with no name), in 7?9-year-old children (Exp.1, N?=?71) and adults (Exp.2, N?=?52). In both experiments, the Self condition elicited significantly higher spans than the other conditions (Exp 1: p?

AB - Abstract From attentional prioritization to enhanced memory, self-cues trigger a variety of effects within human cognition. Recent work suggests that self-reference may also enhance working memory, possibly via attentional prioritization. However, there is no direct evidence that self-cues enhance working memory capacity, or that such boosts covary with individuals' attentional function. Here, we provide the first direct evidence of enhanced working memory capacity for self-referential cues, independent of attentional processing. We adapted a verbal working memory complex span to create a ?Self? condition (featuring the participant's own name), ?Other? condition (featuring a non-self-name), and Control condition (with no name), in 7?9-year-old children (Exp.1, N?=?71) and adults (Exp.2, N?=?52). In both experiments, the Self condition elicited significantly higher spans than the other conditions (Exp 1: p?

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Working memory capacity and self-cues: Consistent benefits in children and adults

Abstract

Data Availability Statement

Funding

Keywords

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