Short-term storage capacity increases from two units at ages 3-4 to four units at ages 10-11 when executive operations are minimal¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · reviewr2·q2
Currency · newest study 2011 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
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q2 i? When executive operations are held to a minimum, short-term storage capacity is two, three, and four units at ages 3-4, 5-6, and 10-11 years respectively. → Demetriou 2011
Evidence¶
Demetriou 2011¶
Demetriou, A., Spanoudis, G., & Mouyi, A. (2011). Educating the Developing Mind: Towards an Overarching Paradigm. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-011-9178-3
q2 · i? · review · r2
The review reports developmental findings on short-term storage capacity, citing Case 1985, Cowan 2010, Halford 1993, and its own studies. The printed capacities are "two, three, and four units" at the successive age bands; no effect size is printed.
"From the age of 2 years onwards, when executive operations are held to a minimum, short-term storage capacity is two, three, and four units at the age of 3 –4, 5 –6, and 10 –11 years, respectively"
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Extensive Chinese logographic literacy training is associated with higher visuospatial short-term storage that does not generalize to phonological storage — related
- Two subsets of rational-number CCS items demand working memory capacities of 4 or 5 units respectively — related
- The focus of attention factor was the only significant predictor of both fluid reasoning and visual processing intelligence when all three working memory factors were entered — related
- A shared attentional resource for storage and processing is the best supported resource theory of WM capacity but faces empirical challenges — related
- Cowan's three-factor embedded processes model fit young children's working memory data slightly better than Baddeley and Hitch's three-factor model and decisively better than Baddeley's four-factor episodic buffer model — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
short-term-storage-capacity-two-to-four-units |
title |
Short-term storage capacity increases from two units at ages 3-4 to four units at ages 10-11 when executive operations are minimal |
description |
Short-term storage capacity increases from two units at ages 3-4 to four units at ages 10-11 when executive operations are minimal |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
weak |
newest_evidence |
2011 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-21 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — demetriou-2011 |
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