Measuring working memory of children with ADHD by the image-integration task and its potential as a training tool

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K04363
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Educational psychology
• Research Institution: Tokyo University of Social Welfare
• Principal Investigator: Narimoto Tadamasa 東京福祉大学, 心理学部, 准教授 (60434560)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 松浦 直己 三重大学, 教育学部, 教授 (20452518) ; 沢 哲司 北里大学, 医療系研究科, 講師 (80756768)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: 視空間ワーキングメモリ / ADHD児 / 視覚イメージ / 実行機能

Outline of Final Research Achievements

As a result of measuring working memory ability of ADHD children and typically developed children using an "image integration task" that can directly verify the ability of ADHD children, the performance of ADHD children was lower than that of typically developed children. Since there is no difference in short-term memory ability in both groups, this difference in performance cannot be attributed to low storage capacity of ADHD children. In addition, since the involvement of the execution functions is considered to be weak in the execution of this task, this difference in performance cannot be attributed to the weakness of the execution function of ADHD children. Due to the spread of coronal infection, it was not possible to verify the possibility as a training tool for the image integration task. It is in the middle of the preliminary experiment now. We plan to continue to verify this effect in the future.

Free Research Field

教育心理学　実験心理学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

ワーキングメモリとは、保持と処理の続作業を担う能力である。先行研究では、記銘情報を保持し、その保持期間に「別の」処理課題を求める二重課題が用いられてきた。このような課題の達成には、処理と保持の遂行能力以外にもそれを支える実行機能（たとえば無関連情報を抑制することやもはや必要のない心的表象を新たな表象に更新することなど）が強く求められる。本研究では、これまでの課題よりも直接的に処理と保持の遂行能力が測定できるイメージ統合課題を用いて、ADHD児の正確なワーキングメモリ能力を調べることにした。この能力を正確に理解することで、より精度の高い検査 (スクリーニング) ツールを開発することが可能となる。