Publications [#224106] of Amar Hamoudi

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Other Working Papers

  1. Hamoudi, Amar; Santiago Cueto; Sofya Krutikova; Alan Sanchez; and Margaret Sheridan. "Cognitive Skills and Early Life Conditions in a Developing Country Context: How do innovations in measurement enhance the picture?."   (May, 2014).
    (last updated on 2014/07/21)

    Abstract:
    In recent years, technological change has presented a valuable opportunity for innovation in the measurement of cognitive skills in large population based samples. We developed a suite of laboratory-validated cognitive skills assessments administered on touchscreen tablet PCs, and deployed them on a population-based sample of over 1800 Peruvian children aged 12-14 years, as part of the fourth wave of an ongoing panel survey called the Young Lives study (YL). Assessments were based on paradigms that are well established in cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology, and were specifically designed to be domain general (that is, to require no prior exposure to knowledge from any specific subject area). In this paper, we focus on two cognitive skills in particular-- working memory and long term memory. Although both skills are referred to with the word “memory,” they are physiologically distinct and likely represent distinct forms of human capital. We investigate three questions: First, do these laboratory validated assessments identify skill variation, even in children who may be very unfamiliar with touchscreen tablet computers or other aspects of the assessment paradigm? Second, to what extent does performance on domain specific subject tests provide a good basis to infer these domain general skills? And third, does having direct measures of working memory and long term memory provide insights into human capital roles that these two skills might play?

Amar Hamoudi