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Spatial and visual working memory ability in children with difficulties in

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DOI: 10.1080/09541440903091127

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Spatial and visual working memory ability in children with difficulties in

arithmetic word problem solving
Maria Chiara Passolunghia; Irene C. Mammarellab
a
Department of Psychology, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy b Dipartimento di Psicologia dello
Sviluppo e delle Socializzazione, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy

First published on: 22 February 2010

To cite this Article Passolunghi, Maria Chiara and Mammarella, Irene C.(2010) 'Spatial and visual working memory ability
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 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
2010, 22 (6), 944963

Spatial and visual working memory ability in children with

difficulties in arithmetic word problem solving
Maria Chiara Passolunghi
Department of Psychology, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy

Irene C. Mammarella
Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e delle Socializzazione,
Downloaded By: [Mammarella, Irene C.] At: 07:53 6 August 2010

Università di Padova, Padova, Italy

Although various studies support the multicomponent nature of visuospatial

working memory, to date there is no general consensus on the distinction of its
components. A difference is usually proposed between visual and spatial
components of working memory, but the individual roles of these components in
mathematical learning disabilities remains unclear. The present study aimed to
examine the involvement of visual and spatial working memory in poor problem-
solvers compared with children with normal level of achievement. Fourth-grade
participants were presented with tasks measuring phonological loop, central
executive, and visual versus spatial memory. In two separate experiments, both
designed to distinguish visual and spatial component involvement, poor problem-
solvers specifically failed on spatial*but not visual or phonological*working
memory tasks. Results are discussed in the light of possible working memory
models, and specifically demonstrate that problem-solving ability can benefit from
analysis of spatial processes, which involves ability to manipulate and transform
relevant information; instead, no benefit is gained from the analysis of visual
pictorial detail.

Keywords: Working memory; Arithmetic ability; Problem solving; Visuospatial

working memory; Mathematic.

SPATIAL AND VISUAL RECALL IN WORKING MEMORY

Many studies have found that working memory (WM) plays a crucial role
both in calculation and in word problem solving (Alloway, Gathercole,

Correspondence should be addressed to Irene C. Mammarella, Dipartimento di Psicologia

dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Università degli studi di Padova, Via Venezia, 8, Padova
35131, Italy. E-mail: irene.mammarella@unipd.it. And to Maria Chiara Passolunghi,
Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università di Trieste, 34134, Italy, E-mail: passolu@units.it
# 2010 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
http://www.psypress.com/ecp DOI: 10.1080/09541440903091127
 SPATIAL WM IN POOR PROBLEM SOLVERS 945

Adams, & Willis, 2005; Fürst & Hitch, 2000; Geary, Hamson, & Hoard,
2000; Hitch, 1978; Logie, Gilhooly, & Wynn, 1994; Passolunghi & Cornoldi,
2008; Passolunghi & Siegel, 2001, 2004). Among the several WM models, we
consider the most influential model of Baddeley (1986) and the perspective
of the continuity model proposed by Cornoldi and Vecchi (2003).
Baddeley’s WM model (1986) identifies the central executive (a system
responsible for a range of regulatory functions, including attention, control
of action, and problem solving) plus two slave systems. These latter consist
of the phonological loop, which holds material in a phonological code, and
the visuospatial sketchpad*or visuospatial working memory (VSWM), the
name more recently adopted (Logie, 1995)*which holds and manipulates
visual and spatial information.
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In the VSWM, Logie (1995) distinguished between the visual cache, which
temporarily stores visual information (i.e., memory for shape and colour)
and the inner scribe, for the rehearsal of motor spatial sequences. Studies
using the dual-task paradigm showed that retention of visual shapes or
colours is disrupted by the presentation of irrelevant pictures (Logie &
Marchetti, 1991) or by dynamic visual noise (Quinn & McConnell, 1996).
Instead, retention of location is disturbed by spatial tracking tasks
(Baddeley & Lieberman, 1980), spatial tapping tasks (Della Sala, Gray,
Baddeley, Allamano, & Wilson, 1999), and eye movements (Postle,
Idzikowski, Della Sala, Logie, & Baddeley, 2006). Subdivision into visual
and spatial WM components is also corroborated by neuropsychological
evidence from patients showing a selective deficit in the performance of
either visual (Carlesimo, Perri, Turriziani, Tomaiuolo, & Caltagirone, 2001;
Farah, Hammond, Levine, & Calvanio, 1988) or spatial WM tasks (Hanley,
Young, & Pearson, 1991; Luzzatti, Vecchi, Agazzi, Cesa-Bianchi, & Vergani,
1998), and by studies of the visual system in primates (the where system for
processing spatial information, and the what system for visual processing
(see Smith & Jonides, 1999, for a review). Furthermore, double dissociation
between visual and spatial WM has been observed in disabled children;
specifically, visual memory impairment was observed in spina bifida
sufferers (Mammarella, Cornoldi, & Donadello, 2003), and children with
Williams syndrome showed spatial memory impairment (Vicari, Bellucci, &
Carlesimo, 2003, 2006).
The continuity model proposed by Cornoldi and Vecchi (2003) assumes
the existence of two dimensions. The horizontal continuum refers to
different types of materials (for example, verbal, visual, and spatial), and
the vertical continuum refers to a distinction between passive storage (in
which participants have to recall information in the previously presented
format) and active processing (which requires the ability to integrate and
modify previous information).
 946 PASSOLUNGHI AND MAMMARELLA

Although converging evidence supports the multicomponent nature of

VSWM, no general consensus has been reached on the number or
characteristics of its components. Several distinctions regarding VSWM
have been suggested*for example, between static and dynamic format
(Pickering, 2001; Pickering, Gathercole, Hall, & Lloyd, 2001); extrinsic- and
intrinsic-pattern and intrinsic-path encoding (Lecerf & de Ribaupierre,
2005); and visual, sequential-spatial, and simultaneous-spatial presentation
format (Mammarella, Pazzaglia, & Cornoldi, 2008; Pazzaglia & Cornoldi,
1999). Moreover, a distinction is presumed between spatial memory for
routes or paths (requiring sequential processing of spatial information), and
knowledge about spatial layouts, such as those involved in memory for
object locations (Schacter & Nadel, 1991). In turn, object-location memory
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can be further divided into exact, metric (or coordinate) processing, and
memory for relative relationships between objects and their features, or
object-location binding, which requires the object’s identity to be linked to its
position (Postma & de Haan, 1996).

WORKING MEMORY AND ARITHMETIC WORD

PROBLEM SOLVING
In regard to the relationship between WM and calculation, several studies
have shown that the central executive plays an important role in simple
addition and multiplication, i.e., calculation involving simple digits
(Ashcraft, Donley, Halas, & Vakali, 1992; de Rammelaere, Stuyven, &
Vandierendonck, 1999, 2001; de Rammelaere & Vandierendonck, 2001;
Hecht, 2002), as well as in complex mental arithmetic (e.g., calculation
involving multidigits) for both addition (Fürst & Hitch, 2000) and multi-
plication (Seitz & Schumann-Hengsteler, 2000, 2002). The phonological loop
appears to be involved in counting (Logie & Baddeley, 1987) and in holding
information in calculations. However, the phonological loop did not
represent a fundamental deficit for children of low mathematical ability
when difference in reading is controlled for (Bull & Johnston, 1997; McLean
& Hitch, 1999; Passolunghi, 2006; Passolunghi & Siegel, 2004).
Regarding mathematical reasoning, several studies have shown that
children with poor problem-solving skills have lower WM ability (Swanson,
Jerman, & Zheng, 2008; Swanson & Sachse-Lee, 2001) and perform worse
on central executive tasks that require inhibition or updating of incoming
information (Passolunghi, Cornoldi, & de Liberto, 1999; Passolunghi &
Pazzaglia, 2005; Passolunghi, & Siegel, 2001). However, the role of VSWM
in mathematical reasoning and word problem solving is less clear and still
under debate.
 SPATIAL WM IN POOR PROBLEM SOLVERS 947

McLean and Hitch (1999) found that 9-year-old maths-disabled children

performed less well than a control group on a VSWM task, and Reuhkala
(2001) found that performance on a visual-spatial task (e.g., visual matrix
pattern task) and a mental rotation task correlated with mathematics test
scores in young adolescents. In studies investigating the influence of WM
components in mathematics school achievement, Holmes and Adams (2006)
showed that VSWM and central executive scores predicted children’s
curriculum-based mathematical abilities in children aged 8 and 9 years. In
particular, the data indicated a stronger role for VSWM (e.g., maze memory)
in the performance of younger children on mathematics (see also Holmes,
Adams, & Hamilton, 2008). Similarly, Jarvis and Gathercole (2003) showed
that both verbal and visuospatial WM are important predictors of National
Curriculum mathematics test scores in children aged 11 and 14 years. In
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contrast, Bull, Johnston, and Roy (1999) found that 7-year-old children of
high and low mathematical ability did not differ in spatial working memory
task, when assessed using the forward Corsi blocks task. The discrepancy in
these latter results, partially due to the different ages of the participants and
to the group selection criteria, can further be explained by the lack of
distinction of visual and spatial working memory subcomponents.
Although the literature investigating VSWM clearly distinguishes be-
tween visual and spatial WM components, this dissociation has never been
examined in relation to word problem solving. In a previous study on word
problem solving, Hegarty and Kozhevnikov (1999) hypothesised that the
visualiser cognitive style is not a unitary construct but involves two
qualitatively different types of visualiser that solve visually presented
problems in different ways. The authors distinguished between a schematic
representation, primarily encoding the spatial relations described in a
problem, and a pictorial representation, primarily encoding the visual
appearance of the objects described. They demonstrated that the schematic
representation is positively related to success in word problem solving,
whereas the pictorial representation is negatively related to good perfor-
mance in word problem solving. The authors concluded with a discussion of
the inconsistent results of previous studies and suggested a distinction
between schematic (spatial) and visual representation in order to reveal any
significant relationship between visuospatial imagery and mathematical
performance. However, in the Hegarty and Kozhevnikov study, the influence
of WM on word problems, and more in particular of visual versus spatial
working memory, was not taken into account.
Word problems involve a written text containing a set of data followed by
one or more questions; they are also called ‘‘arithmetic word problems’’ (see
Passolunghi et al., 1999) if the solution requires the use of the four basic
arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division).
Arithmetic word problems are an important part of mathematics programs
 948 PASSOLUNGHI AND MAMMARELLA

in elementary schools, and in this study, we chose arithmetic word problems

commonly used at school. In addition to knowledge base, reasoning, and
comprehension, working memory is a fundamental component in many
current theories of children’s problem solving (Alloway et al., 2005;
Passolunghi & Siegel, 2001). Word problem-solving solution requires
maintaining incoming information, integrating it with the previous informa-
tion, selecting relevant and inhibiting irrelevant information, and finally
building up a mental representation of the problem. All these processes
involve working memory (Passolunghi & Pazzaglia, 2004; Rassmussen, &
Bisanz, 2005; Swanson et al., 2008). However, to our knowledge no studies
have explicitly isolated visual and spatial processes of WM as directly related
to success in problem solving, in particular comparing children with and
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without word problem-solving difficulties. We chose to focus on word

problem solving rather than more general mathematics achievement, since
restricting the area of investigation allows a more precise identification of
the VSWM subcomponents able to predict word problem-solving ability.
In particular, the main goal of the present study was to examine whether
visual and spatial WM are involved in word problem solving in different
ways, and, if so, how. In fact, in our view, the distinction between visual
versus spatial WM could clarify the involvement of these different
components in word problem-solving ability. If the ability to maintain and
transform spatial representations is more related to word problem solving
than the ability to maintain visual pictorial detail, we would expect to find
specific impairment of spatial WM in poor problem-solvers.
Marking a distinction between spatial and visual WM is important for
theoretical reasons, since it contributes to shed light on the working memory
architecture. In addition, the distinction is relevant from an educational
viewpoint in determining whether spatial WM or visual WM best predicts
success in word problem-solving ability. Our expectation is that visual
WM*involving the construction of concrete, vivid, and detailed images of
an object*is unhelpful to word problem solving. By contrast, spatial WM
that involves the building of schematic representations facilitates the creation
of spatial relationships between objects, and thus mental operations and
transformations. For example, let us consider this arithmetic word problem:

A child builds three towers using red and white coloured blocks of the same size.
The lowest tower has 14 blocks; the highest has 7 more blocks. The intermediate
tower has three blocks less than the highest one. How many blocks are in each of
the three towers?

Using a problem-solving strategy involving spatial WM, a child could create

a schematic image of the correct number of blocks for each tower and in
relationship to the others. By contrast, a child who uses a strategy involving
 SPATIAL WM IN POOR PROBLEM SOLVERS 949

visual WM, would imagine irrelevant details of the blocks such as their
colours and textures rather than focusing on the relevant spatial relationship
between the blocks. This type of strategy is unhelpful, and even counter-
productive, in arriving at a correct solution.
In order to test this hypothesis, we carried out two experiments
considering phonological loop and central executive measures, as well as
VSWM measures in two groups of children: poor problem-solvers and
children achieving at normal levels (hereafter ‘‘normal achievers’’). This
methodology has been used in previous studies and allows strengths and
weaknesses of children with problem-solving difficulties to be found (Bull &
Johnston, 1997; Hitch & McAuley, 1991; McLean & Hitch, 1999; Siegel &
Ryan, 1989; Swanson et al., 2008).
In summary, in two experiments we considered different working memory
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measures. To test the phonological loop we used the forward digit span, the
forward word span, the syllable span, and the verbal counting (see
Passolunghi & Siegel, 2001; Pickering & Gathercole, 2004). As measures
of central executive, the backward word span and the backward digit span
were employed (see Gathercole, Pickering, Ambridge, & Wearing, 2004;
Pickering & Gathercole, 2004). For studying spatial working memory we
used the forward and the backward Corsi blocks task (Corsi, 1972), and the
spatial correct responses of the spatial matrix task (see Cornoldi, Dalla
Vecchia, & Tressoldi, 1995; Zimmer, Speiser, & Seidler, 2003). To avoid the
possibility of verbal recoding of visual stimuli, the pathway span task in
Experiment 2 was used (see Cornoldi et al., 1997). Finally, the tasks used for
measuring visual WM were the visual correct responses of the spatial matrix
task and the house recognition task (see Mammarella et al., 2003).

EXPERIMENT 1
Method
Participants
In this study, poor problem-solvers were defined as having normal
intelligence on the basis of the measure of vocabulary subtest of the Primary
Mental Abilities (Thurstone & Thurstone, 1963) but with a mean performance
below the 30th percentile on an Italian standardised mathematics test
(Amoretti, Bazzini, Pesci, & Reggiani, 1994). Moreover, teachers’ recommen-
dations of children showing mathematical difficulties were followed. The 30th
percentile cutoff score on standardised achievement measures has been
commonly used to identify poor problem-solvers (Passolunghi & Cornoldi,
2008; Passolunghi et al., 1999; Passolunghi & Siegel, 2001, 2004; Schuchardt,
Maehler, & Hasselhorn, 2008) and was therefore adopted in the present study.
 950 PASSOLUNGHI AND MAMMARELLA

From an initial sample of 293 children (151 male, 142 female) attending
fourth grade of primary school, with a mean age of 9 years and 5 months, we
selected a group of 20 poor problem-solvers and a group of 19 normal
achievers. Participants had no documented brain injury, sociocultural
disadvantage, or behavioural problems. Children were included in the
‘‘poor’’ group if their scores were less than the 30th percentile on a
standardised mathematics test (Amoretti et al., 1994) and if the teacher had
noted the child having difficulty in mathematics, especially with arithmetic
word problems. The standardised mathematics test consisted of 12 items:
8 written arithmetic word problems and 4 questions examining the
manipulation of Arabic and verbal numerals (e.g., putting a series of Arabic
numbers in ascending order; writing the Arabic numeral that corresponds to
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a verbal numeral). A typical problem was: ‘‘This Saturday Robert goes with
his mother to the supermarket. His mother buys 400 grams of ham and
spends 6.80 Euros. What is the cost of 100 grams of ham?’’ Poor problem-
solvers were selected considering only their performances in the word
problem solving of the Amoretti et al. (1994) test. The poor problem-solver
group therefore always suffered word problem-solving impairment showing
floor performances, whereas their performances in manipulating numbers
were low but never reached floor level.
Children were included in the ‘‘normal achievers’’ group if they scored
between the 50th and 80th percentiles on the fourth-grade standardised
mathematics test (Amoretti et al., 1994) and were considered by their
teachers to be performing at grade level or above. Normal achievers and
poor problem-solvers also differed in calculation performance, t(37)14.22,
pB.001 (Table 1) assessed by the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT;
Jastak & Wilkinson, 1993).

TABLE 1
Means and standard deviations (SD) of poor problem-solvers and normal achievers
on mathematical and linguistic achievement (Exp. 1)
Poor problem-solvers Normal achievers

Mean SD Mean SD

Mathematical achievement
Amoretti et al. (1994) 2.45 1.43 7.95 0.91
WRAT (Jastak & Wilkinson, 1993) 29.40 1.67 36.42 2.63
Linguistic achievement
Vocabulary (PMA; Thurstone & Thurstone, 1963) 54.90 2.05 55.95 1.87
Reading comprehension (Cornoldi & Colpo, 1981) 8.90 1.07 9.37 1.01

The percentile means and SD in the Amoretti et al. test were 18.15 (10.96) and 66.32 (7.74) in
poor (normal) problem-solvers.
 SPATIAL WM IN POOR PROBLEM SOLVERS 951

Finally, poor problem-solvers and normal achievers were matched for age,
gender (‘‘poor’’ group: 11 males and 9 females; ‘‘normal achievers’’ group:
13 males and 6 females), school level, reading comprehension (Cornoldi &
Colpo, 1981), t(37)1.40, p.17, and performance on the vocabulary
subtest of the Primary Mental Abilities (Thurstone & Thurstone, 1963),
t(37)1.66, p.10. Table 1 summarises the characteristics of the two
groups.

Materials and procedure

Children were presented with phonological loop, central executive, and
spatial and visual WM tasks. The tests were administered in a quiet school-
room in a single individual session and presentation order was counter-
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balanced according to a randomised Latin square.

Phonological loop tasks (see, for example, Passolunghi & Siegel, 2001;
Pickering & Gathercole, 2004):
. Digit forward span task: Children were presented with digits to be
recalled in order of presentation. Lists were constructed by sampling
randomly and without replacement from the digits ranging from 1 to 9,
and were presented at the rate of one digit per second. There were two
items for each span length (from 2 to 8) and the span was considered
correct when all items were recalled in correct order. If the child failed
on the second attempt, testing on this task was halted (maximum
score8).
. Word forward span task: Children listened to sequences of familiar two-
syllable words and had to recall each sequence in the correct order. The
procedure was the same as for the digit span task (maximum score8).
. Syllable span task: Children were presented with syllables to be recalled
in order of presentation. There were two items for each span length
(from 2 to 7). The score was calculated as follows: 2 points were awarded
when a child correctly recalled two items for each length, 1 point when
one item was correctly recalled, and 0 points when no item was correctly
recalled. The scores were then totalled (maximum score7).
. Verbal counting task: Children were asked to count from 1 to 10 as fast
as possible, three times. The experimenter measured the mean counting
times. The task is a measure of number sequence knowledge and of
phonological and articulatory aspects. In this task, there was no set
maximum score, since there was no time limit for the requested
repetitions.

Central executive tasks (see, for example, Gathercole et al., 2004;

Pickering & Gathercole, 2004):
 952 PASSOLUNGHI AND MAMMARELLA

. Digit backward span task: Children were presented with digits to be

recalled in reverse order. Lists were constructed by sampling randomly
and without replacement from the digits ranging from 1 to 9, and were
presented at the rate of one digit per second. There were two items for
each span length (from 2 to 8), and the span was considered correct
when all items were recalled in reverse order (maximum score8).
. Word backward span task: Children were presented with familiar two-
syllable words and had to recall them in reverse order. There were two
items for each span length presented (2 to 8), and the span was
considered correct when both items were recalled in correct order
(maximum score8).

Spatial memory tasks (see, for example, Cornoldi et al., 1995, 1997):
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. Corsi blocks task (forward and backward): Children were presented

with nine blocks arranged irregularly on a wooden board. On the
experimenter’s side of the board, the cubes were numbered for easy
identification. The blocks were tapped by an examiner at a rate of one
block per second, and participants attempted to reproduce the same
sequences of increasing length, both forwards and backwards (39 in
forward recall, 28 in backward recall). Two trials were used at each
level of difficulty, since in the verbal span tasks the spatial span was
taken to be the longest sequence in which at least one of the two
sequences presented was correctly reproduced (forward recall, max-
imum score9; backward recall, maximum score8).
. Spatial matrix task (Cornoldi et al., 1997): Participants were presented
with eight 44 matrices, containing 3, 5, 6, or 7 objects located in
different cells. Each matrix was shown for 30 s, then participants were
presented with empty 44 matrices and had to recall both the identity
of the objects (allowing calculation of correct visual responses) and
their locations. For calculation of correct spatial responses, 1 point was
awarded for each location correctly recalled (maximum score42).

Visual memory tasks (see, for example, Cornoldi et al., 1995, 1997;
Mammarella et al., 2003):
. House recognition test (Mammarella et al., 2003): This is considered to
be a visual task. The stimuli were schematic drawings of houses viewed
from the front. The level of complexity was defined as the number of
houses to be recognised (from 1 to 5). Initially, three sets of one house
were shown for 2 s. Immediately after presentation, the participant had
to recognise the target house from a set comprising four stimuli. Three
sets of two houses were then presented for the same length of time and
the participant had to recognise them, again from a total of four houses
(Figure 1). Continuing in a similar way, three sets of three houses had to
 SPATIAL WM IN POOR PROBLEM SOLVERS 953
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Figure 1. An example of the house recognition task: (A) two target houses; (B) four distractors.

be recognised from among six houses, three sets of four houses from
among eight houses, and finally three sets of five houses from among
ten. One point was awarded for each correctly identified house
(maximum score45).
. Spatial matrix task (Cornoldi et al., 1997): Participants were presented
with eight 44 matrices, containing 3, 5, 6, or 7 objects located in
different cells. Each matrix was shown for 30 s, then participants were
presented with empty 44 matrices and had to recall both the identity
and the location of the objects. In order to compute visual correct
responses, 1 point was awarded for each identity correctly recalled
(maximum score42).

Results
Table 2 summarises the results of the one-way ANOVAs. Poor problem-
solvers performed differently from normal achievers in spatial (but not
visual) WM tasks. In fact, poor problem-solvers were impaired on the
forward, F(1, 37)4.64, p.04, hp2 .11, and backward, F(1, 37)10.81,
p.002, h 2p .23, Corsi blocks task, and in correct spatial responses for the
spatial matrix task, F(1, 37)6.26, p.017, h 2p .15.

Discussion
Results of Experiment 1 demonstrated that poor problem-solvers specifically
failed on spatial memory tasks, both in forward/backward Corsi blocks task
 954 PASSOLUNGHI AND MAMMARELLA

TABLE 2
Mean performance and standard deviations (SD) of poor problem-solvers and
normal achievers on verbal and visuospatial WM tasks and results of one-way
ANOVAs comparing the two groups (Exp. 1)
Poor Normal
problem-solvers achievers

Task M (SD) M (SD) df F p h p2

Phonological loop tasks

Forward digit span 5.90 (0.97) 6.00 (0.75) 1, 37 0.13 .72 .003
Forward word span 4.15 (0.37) 4.32 (0.58) 1, 37 1.14 .29 .03
Syllable span 6.20 (2.61) 6.79 (2.64) 1, 37 0.49 .49 .013
Verbal counting 9.45 (1.52) 9.39 (1.69) 1, 37 0.012 .92 .001
Central executive tasks
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Backward word span 3.55 (0.99) 3.74 (1.05) 1, 37 0.33 .57 .009
Backward digit span 3.90 (0.64 4.42 (1.02) 1, 37 3.70 .06 .09
Spatial memory tasks
Forward Corsi 5.15 (0.88) 5.79 (0.98) 1, 37 4.65 .04* .11
Backward Corsi 4.70 (1.08) 5.68 (0.75) 1, 37 10.81 .002* .23
Matrix task*spatial 16.10 (3.67) 18.42 (1.74) 1, 37 6.26 .017* .15
responses
Visual memory tasks
Matrix task*visual 15.75 (3.51) 16.84 (2.46) 1, 37 1.26 .27 .03
responses
House recognition 36.65 (4.02) 38.53 (3.22) 1, 37 2.57 .12 .06

* significant difference.

and in correct spatial responses of the spatial matrix task. Moreover, they
did not differ from normal achievers in visual memory tasks (house
recognition test and visual responses in the spatial matrix task) or in
performance on phonological loop and central executive tasks, although
there was a marginally significant difference between groups on the
backward digit span task, as revealed by previous studies (see, for example,
Passolunghi & Siegel, 2001; Swanson, 2006).
Experiment 1 does present a limitation in use of the spatial matrix task.
This task required recall of both visual identity of nameable pictures (e.g.,
naming concrete objects represented on the spatial matrix task) and their
spatial locations (e.g., pointing to the locations previously occupied by the
objects on the spatial matrix task). Evidence suggests that visuospatial tasks
involving nameable pictures might also be subject to a process of
phonological recoding (Hitch, Halliday, Schaafstal, & Schraagen, 1988;
see also Palmer, 2000). In fact, across a range of studies, it has been found
that very young children appear to encode pictures of objects in visual form.
However, after the age of 8 years, children tend to adopt a phonological
approach to remembering the same pictures. Specifically, Hitch et al. (1988)
 SPATIAL WM IN POOR PROBLEM SOLVERS 955

found that young children who labelled objects performed better than those
who did not, suggesting that a process of labelling improves recall.
The present research tested fourth-graders, precisely the age at which
these children seem to benefit from a phonological recoding of visual
nameable objects; we therefore cannot rule out recourse to a phonological
recoding in our spatial matrix task. In contrast, the second visual WM task
employed in Experiment 1*i.e., the house recognition test (Mammarella
et al., 2003)*minimised the possibility of a phonological recoding. In fact,
in this task, all drawings represented small schematic houses of different
shapes and sizes, such that the use of a phonological recoding might impair
rather than facilitate memorisation of the pictures. In order to exclude this
possibility, we ran a second experiment in which the spatial matrix task was
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replaced by the pathway span task (Cornoldi et al., 1995, 1997). The latter is
considered a spatial task: Children have to imagine following a pathway on a
33 matrix described verbally by the experimenter. On completion of the
pathway, participants have to point to the last pathway position (i.e., the last
cell of the matrix at completion of that pathway).
A second reason for running Experiment 2 was to replicate and reinforce
our findings of Experiment 1, demonstrating that the problems encountered
by poor problem-solvers concern spatial memory to a greater extent than
visual memory.

EXPERIMENT 2
Methods
Participants
The same criteria used in Experiment 1 were assumed for selecting poor
problem-solvers and normal achievers. From an initial sample of 201
children (96 male, 105 female) attending fourth grade of primary school,
with a mean age of 9 years and 6 months, we selected one group of 10 poor
problem-solvers and one group of 10 normal achievers. Children were
included in the ‘‘poor’’ group if their scores were less than the 30th percentile
on a standardised mathematics test (Amoretti et al., 1994) and if the
teacher had noted the child having difficulty in mathematics, especially
with arithmetic word problems. Poor problem-solvers were selected only
on the basis of their performance in the word problem solving of the
Amoretti et al. (1994) test. The poor problem-solver group therefore always
suffered word problem-solving impairment showing floor performances, and
their performances in manipulating numbers were low but never reached
floor level.
 956 PASSOLUNGHI AND MAMMARELLA

TABLE 3
Means and standard deviations (SD) of poor problem-solvers and normal achievers
on mathematical and linguistic achievement (Exp. 2)
Poor problem-solvers Normal achievers

Mean SD Mean SD

Mathematical achievement
Amoretti et al. (1994) 1.80 1.48 8.20 1.03
WRAT (Jastak & Wilkinson, 1993) 29.79 1.83 35.40 6.57
Linguistic achievement
Vocabulary (PMA; Thurstone & Thurstone, 1963) 54.80 2.15 56.00 2.16
Reading comprehension (Cornoldi & Colpo, 1981) 9.00 1.15 9.20 1.03

The percentile means and SD in the Amoretti et al. test were 13.40 (10.77) and 68.40 (8.58) in
Downloaded By: [Mammarella, Irene C.] At: 07:53 6 August 2010

poor (normal) problem-solvers.

Children were included in the normal achievers group if they scored

between the 50th and 80th percentiles on the fourth-grade standardised
mathematics test (Amoretti et al., 1994) and were considered by their
teachers to be performing at grade level or above. The two groups also
differed in calculation performance, t(18) 2.64, pB.05, assessed by the
Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT; Jastak & Wilkinson, 1993). Finally,
poor problem-solvers were also matched to normal achievers for age, gender
(‘‘poor’’ group: 7 males and 3 females; ‘‘normal’’ group: 6 males and 4
females), school level, reading comprehension (Cornoldi & Colpo, 1981),
t(18) 0.41, p.69, and performance on the vocabulary subtest of the
Primary Mental Abilities (Thurstone & Thurstone, 1963), t(18) 1.24,
p.23. Table 3 summarises the characteristics of the participants.

Materials and procedure

Children were presented with phonological, central executive, and visual
and spatial memory tasks (see materials of Experiment 1). The tests were
administered in a quiet school-room in a single individual session and
presentation order was counterbalanced according to a randomised Latin
square. Materials were the same as those presented in Experiment 1, with the
exception of the spatial matrix task (Cornoldi et al., 1997), which was
replaced by a different spatial task (Cornoldi et al., 1995), the pathway span
task (Cornoldi et al., 1997), in order to eliminate any possibility of
phonological recoding. In this latter task, children were presented with
33 matrices and the experimenter read the pathways aloud as a series of
direction statements (i.e., forwards, backwards, left, or right), presented at a
rate of one per second. The starting point of the pathway was indicated by a
filled cell in the bottom-left corner of the matrix. During reading, the matrix
 SPATIAL WM IN POOR PROBLEM SOLVERS 957

TABLE 4
Mean performance and standard deviations (SD) of poor problem-solvers and
normal achievers on verbal and visuospatial working memory tasks and results of
one-way ANOVAs comparing the two groups (Exp. 2)
Poor Normal
problem-solvers achievers

Task M (SD) M (SD) df F p h p2

Phonological loop tasks

Forward digit span 6.20 (0.63) 6.20 (0.79) 1,18 0.01 .99 .00
Forward word span 4.20 (0.42) 4.40 (0.52) 1,18 0.90 .36 .05
Syllable span 8.60 (0.97) 9.10 (0.99) 1,18 1.30 .27 .07
Verbal counting 9.95 (1.09) 10.30 (1.01) 1,18 0.56 .47 .03
Central executive tasks
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Backward digit span 3.90 (0.57) 4.60 (1.17) 1,18 2.88 .11 .14
Backward word span 3.80 (0.63) 4.00 (0.47) 1,18 0.64 .43 .03
Spatial memory tasks
Forward Corsi 5.20 (0.79) 5.70 (0.82) 1,18 1.93 .18 .10
Backward Corsi 4.30 (0.48) 5.30 (0.48) 1,18 21.43 .001* .54
Pathway span 8.00 (0.67) 8.80 (0.42) 1,18 10.29 .005* .36
Visual memory tasks
House recognition 35.20 (4.02) 37.40 (3.94) 1,18 1.61 .22 .08

*significant difference.

was hidden and children had to visualise the pathways mentally. After the
reading of each pathway, participants had to indicate the final position of
the pathway in the same matrix. A total of 12 pathways were presented.
Correct responses were the overall scores of the final positions correctly
localised (maximum score12).

Results
The results are summarised in Table 4 and replicate those obtained in
Experiment 1. Poor problem-solvers performed differently from normal
achievers in spatial (but not visual) WM tasks. Poor problem-solvers were
impaired on the backward Corsi blocks task, F(1, 18)21.43, p.001,
h 2p .54, and pathway span task, F(1, 18)10.29, p.005, h 2p .36, but
not the house recognition test, F(1, 18)1.61, p.22, h 2p .08.

Discussion
Experiment 2 was designed to exclude the possibility of specific spatial
memory impairments observed in poor problem-solvers in Experiment 1
 958 PASSOLUNGHI AND MAMMARELLA

being due to phonological recoding. The overall results of Experiment 2

reproduced those of Experiment 1, i.e., specific impairment of spatial
memory in poor problem-solvers. This replication of findings was found
despite the group sizes being half those tested in Experiment 1. The pathway
span task does not involve nameable pictures but requires a pathway to be
followed mentally in a matrix. Poor problem-solvers performed more poorly
than normal achievers in this task. The forward Corsi blocks task
differentiates between groups in Experiment 1, but not Experiment 2; this
could be due to the lower number of children in the latter experiment, and
thus its lower statistical power. Moreover, specific interpretations given in
the literature suggested that backward Corsi blocks task involves also
central executive processes (Passolunghi & Cornoldi, 2008; Vandierendonck,
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Kemps, Fastame, & Szmalec, 2004). This aspect could explain why the
backward Corsi seemed to be a more reliable measure than forward Corsi
for distinguishing the groups.

GENERAL DISCUSSION
Although experimental (Klauer & Zhao, 2004), developmental (Logie &
Pearson, 1997), and neuropsychological (Farah et al., 1988; Luzzatti et al.,
1998) evidence has demonstrated that VSWM can be divided into at least
two subcomponents (i.e., visual and spatial), published studies have not
taken this distinction into account when examining VSWM impairments in
mathematical learning disability and poor problem-solvers in particular.
This is probably due to the difficulty of studying VSWM. The psychology
literature in fact puts forward numerous alternative hypotheses, most of
which give plausible interpretations of the multicomponent nature of
VSWM. Moreover, there is no consensus on a task considered specifically
to tap a VSWM subcomponent (Mammarella et al., 2006, 2008; Pickering,
2001) and this makes interpretation of results difficult.
However, the intuition that number representation may be spatially
organised is not new. For example, Dehaene (1992) postulated an analogue
code where numbers are represented as variable distributions of local
activation along a mental number line. Moreover, examination of the
literature on neuropsychological deficits in adults clearly reveals that spatial
abilities are relevant for mathematics performance (Granà, Hofer, &
Semenza, 2006; Zorzi, Priftis, & Umiltà, 2002).
In addition, Hegarty and Kozhevnikov (1999; see also Kozhevnikov,
Hegarty, & Mayer, 2002) demonstrated that use of schematic spatial
representations was associated with success in mathematical problem
solving, whereas use of pictorial representations was negatively correlated
 SPATIAL WM IN POOR PROBLEM SOLVERS 959

with success. However, Hegarty and Kozhevnikov did not take VSWM tasks
into account.
In the current research, poor problem-solvers and normal achievers were
tested in visual, spatial, phonological, and central executive WM tasks. Two
different experiments were run to demonstrate that poor problem-solvers
were specifically impaired on spatial but not visual memory tasks. Previous
studies have demonstrated that specific activities of the central executive
related to suppression of irrelevant information are deficient in children with
poor problem-solving abilities (Passolunghi, Cornoldi, & de Liberto, 2001;
Passolunghi & Siegel, 2001), and that central executive measures contributed
unique variance to word problem-solving solutions (Swanson & Beebe-
Frankenberger, 2004; Swanson & Sachse-Lee, 2001). Moreover, according to
Swanson and Beebe-Frankenberger (2004; see also Swanson et al., 2008),
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the central executive system explains a significant portion of variance to

individual differences in word problem-solving performances. The present
research cannot completely exclude the involvement of the central executive
component. In our view, our results are more successfully interpreted in
reference to the continuity model proposed by Cornoldi and Vecchi (2003).
This model assumes the existence of two dimensions: a horizontal
continuum referring to different types of material (for example, verbal,
visual, spatial), and a vertical continuum involved in all tasks but requiring
different degrees of attentional control. In this framework, a visual or a
spatial task might be passive, if for example the task requires a pathway or
the visual properties of a picture to be recalled, or else active should
the task require memory material to be actively manipulated by subjects
required to produce an output different from the original input. Following
this reasoning, the backward Corsi blocks task can be interpreted as a
spatial task but involving a higher attentional control than the forward
Corsi blocks task (see Passolunghi & Cornoldi, 2008). Similarly, the pathway
span task can be considered as a spatial task involving high attentional
control, as children have to move mentally in a matrix and recall
only the final position of the pathway given by the experimenter. According
to this model, at higher control levels, tasks partially (but not completely)
lose their modality specificity and the distance between similar components
is reduced.
Our results also have practical implications: We have demonstrated that
poor problem solving is related to deficient processing of spatial informa-
tion, which is consistent with Hegarty and Kozhevnikov’s (1999) results,
demonstrating that in arithmetic problem solving, the use of spatial
schematic imagery is associated with better performance. Poor problem-
solvers would therefore benefit from training in representing the spatial
relationships intrinsic to a problem’s data, and imagining their transforma-
tions. Finally, understanding of the role of VSWM in poor problem-solvers
 960 PASSOLUNGHI AND MAMMARELLA

could be extended through further studies based on a battery of different

tasks measuring visual and spatial WM components, or use of different
materials with different degrees of attentional control. Studies based on
appropriately devised visual and spatial tasks with high and low attentional
control would shed light on the role of both presentation modality and
attentional control in distinguishing poor problem-solvers from normal
achievers and good problem-solvers.

Original manuscript received October 2008

Revised manuscript received May 2009
First published online February 2010
Downloaded By: [Mammarella, Irene C.] At: 07:53 6 August 2010

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