Digit memory in chinese and english by Zehui Weng

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Digit memory in chinese and english

Published on Nov 26, 2015

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PRESENTATION OUTLINE

Digit Memory In Chinese and English: evidence for a temporally limited store
Zehui Weng

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Researchers:
James W. Stigler
Shin-Ying Lee
Harold W. Stevenson
(1986)

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background

Performance in math tests: Asian Children vs. Americans
(Husen, 1967; Stigler, Lee, Lucker, & Stevenson, 1982)
Asians may be born with extraordinary math abilities
(Stevenson, Stigler, Lee, Lucker, Kitamura, & Hsu, 1985)

factors:
1. cultural emphasis on the imp. of math.
2. the amount of time devoted to math. instruction in school
3. intelligence

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Purpose:
to describe and clarify the nature of the Chinese digit-memory advantage

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3 Studies
#1: documents a Chinese advantage in memory for digits

The first study presents digit-span performance of kindergarten, first- and fifth-grade children in Taiwan, Japan, and the United States, and compares short-term memory for digits with performance on a test of short-term memory for words.

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#2: assesses the possible role of information processing strategies in explaining the difference

The 2nd study compared digit memory of 6- and 7-year-old children, Chinese and American, under forward, backward and grouped conditions.

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#2: assesses the possible role of information processing strategies

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#3: addresses the hypothesis that cross-linguistic differences in the time required to pronounce number words could be a factor

The final study, carried out on Chinese and American university students, investigated differences in pronunciation duration of Chinese and English number words as a possible explanation of span differences.

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