Abstract
This paper presents a methodology designed to investigate the potential independence of memory and inhibition as component processes of executive function (EF) in young school age children. Two groups of 30 6β and 8βyearβolds were tested on three EF tasks; a continuous performance test, a Stroopβlike task, and a start/stop task. Each task had four conditions, which systematically combined two levels of memory load and two levels of inhibitory demand. This design enabled us to examine whether, within the range of memory and inhibitory loads used, the effects of memory and inhibitory demands on these tasks were additive and independent, or instead interacted with one another. Analyses of both errors and response times across the three tasks provided no positive evidence for the view that memory and inhibition are interβdependent processes. The tasks proved sensitive to age, with the 8βyearβolds generally outperforming the 6βyearβolds. In addition, effects of the memory and inhibition manipulations were observed. However, there was little evidence that memory load and inhibitory demand interacted in the way that would be expected if these factors draw on a shared pool of common executive resources. Copyright Β© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.