The influence of age, sex, and intelligence (IQ) on performance of a delaye
d matching-to-sample (DMTS) task, commonly used with animals and adult huma
n subjects to study aspects of short-term memory, was examined for 674 chil
dren, 5 to 13 years old. The data suggest that younger children were less a
ccurate at short delays and displayed a greater decrease in accuracy as rec
all delay increased than older children. Children with lower IQs demonstrat
ed consistent impairment in recall of information when compared to children
with higher IQs. No significant differences in task performance were obser
ved between boys and girls. These normative data provide insights into the
developmental time course of behaviors thought to serve as metrics of short
-term memory. These data will be critical for ongoing and future studies in
determining whether specific clinical diagnoses, drug treatments, or other
risk factors (e.g., perinatal drug exposure, pregnancy complications, expo
sure to toxicants) are associated with differences on specific aspects of t
ask performance. The use of tasks that are also applicable to animal models
provides great opportunities for the conduct of important comparative stud
ies. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.