How
poverty may affect memory
Taylor & Francis, Science
Daily
Working memory, how we actively hold and manipulate information
in our mind, is a cognitive skill used on a daily basis. How effectively
working memory performs, however, is not as universal as one may think.
In an
Open Access article published in the Journal
of Cognition and Development titled
"Working Memory Differences Between Children Living in Rural and Urban
Poverty," author Michele Tine investigated whether working memory of
children living in rural poverty is distinct from the working memory profiles
of children in urban poverty. Both verbal and visuospatial tests were given to
discern how memory deficits compared.
For this study, sixth grade students were selected to participate,
broken into four categories: low-income rural, low-income urban, high-income
rural, and high-income urban.
Participants were
categorized as urban if the school they attended served an "urbanized
area" as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau: was located in a county with a
population of more than 200,000 and had an average enrollment per grade level
at the secondary level of more than 300 students.
The results clearly suggest that school-aged low-SES
(socioeconomic status) children exhibit both verbal and visuospatial working
memory deficits, possibly due to increased levels of stress.
Children in urban
poverty showed symmetric working memory weaknesses, while children in rural
poverty had worse visuospatial working memory than verbal working memory. The
low-SES urban children had poorer verbal working memory than the low-SES rural
children, possibly due to increased exposure to noise pollution, suggests Tine.
The results also revealed that high-SES rural and urban children show
near-identical verbal and visuospatial working memory.
"These results
suggest that living in a rural vs. urban area is associated with working memory
for low-SES, but not high-SES children" says Tine.
Tine explains that this
novel finding aligns with previous work showing that among low-SES children
environmental factors account for the majority of variance in cognitive
ability, while genes account for little variance. In high-income children the
opposite is true. For high-income children, genes account for the majority of
variance.
Opportunities for further research on the topic are prevalent.
Working memory differences could be, in part, due to language differences that
exist between the two samples. Additionally, the majority of low-income rural
samples identified as Caucasian, while the majority of the low-income urban
sample identified as a racial minority.
Working memory differences may be
attributed to different racial identities or stereotype threat. Moving forward,
Tine points out, "we need to think about ways that low-income rural and
urban children can overcome their specific working memory difficulties so they
can optimize their learning on these academic tasks." Download the full
free access article here.
Story
Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by Taylor & Francis. Note: Materials may be edited for
content and length.
Journal
Reference:
Michele Tine. Working
Memory Differences Between Children Living in Rural and Urban Poverty. Journal of Cognition and
Development, 2014; 15 (4): 599 DOI:10.1080/15248372.2013.797906
Cite
This Page:
Taylor & Francis. "How poverty may affect memory."
Science Daily,
29 January 2015.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150129104117.htm>.