The Memory Span Spin-the-Pots: a new working memory task for toddlers

Objectives: The study presents a new working memory (WM) measure for toddlers (Memory Span Spin-the-Pots, MSSP), inspired by the Spin-the-Pots task (Hughes & Ensor, 2005), requiring to retrieve objects hidden in little boxes. The MSSP includes a smaller numbers of targets and a systematical manipulation of WM load by covering or not the display, and by rotating it or not. The goals were examining the effects of covering and rotation on toddlers’ WM through MSSP, and validating the MSSP as a WM measure by comparing it with the Imitation Sorting Task (Alp, 1994). Methods: Two experiments were carried out by assessing 18-36-mounth toddlers. Experiment 1: children performed the MSSP task in four conditions (no covering, no rotation; covering and rotation; rotation, no covering; covering, no rotation), following a Latin square order. Experiment 2: children were administered two conditions of the MPPS (no covering, no rotation; covering and rotation) and the IST task. Results: Experiment 1: the results showed that covering [F(1,15) = 16.43, p<.001, η2 = .52,] or rotating [F(1,15) = 32.72, p<.001, η2 = .69] hindered toddlers’ performance, and combining both transformations yielded an under-additive interaction [F(1,15) = 10.45, p<.01, η2 = .41]. Experiment 2: the findings displayed that the MSSP correlated with the IST [r(24) = .61, p<.01], also partialling out age [r(24) = .65, p<.001], although the IST was easier. In both experiments, the scores increased with age. Conclusions: These results sheds light on some variables that affect toddlers’ performance on the MSSP, and shows that it can be used as a valid WM measure for toddlers.