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12 - Measuring Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity and Attention Control and Their Contribution to Language Comprehension
Abstract
In this chapter, we discuss the measurement of working memory capacity and attention control. We begin by examining the origins of complex span measures of working memory capacity, which were created to better understand the cognitive processes underpinning language comprehension. We then review evidence for the executive attention theory of working memory, which places attention control at the center of individual differences in working memory capacity and fluid intelligence. Next, we describe the relationship between working memory capacity, attention control, and language comprehension, and discuss how maintenance and disengagement – two functions supported by the control of attention – contribute to performance across a range of cognitive tasks. We then identify factors that threaten the construct and criterion validity of measures of working memory capacity and attention control and detail the steps our laboratory has taken to refine these measures. We close by providing practical recommendations and resources to researchers who wish to use our new measures of working memory capacity and attention control in their work.
... Two theoretical frameworks are gaining increasing prominence in this line of inquiry, namely the embedded-processes model by Cowan [9] and the executive control or attentional control paradigm touted by Engle [56,57]. Though controversies and debates still linger over the sources of such inherent variations [1] and constituent sub-processes, executive WM conceived this way (i.e., EWM in [20]) is generally operationalized and measured by more cognitively demanding dual-processing (e.g., storage plus manipulation) span tasks in both the psychological and language sciences [58,59], including bilingualism/SLA research [60,61]. ...
... Moreover, as the theoretical models of WM evolve, WM measurement procedures are also evolving [61]. As such, the integrated account of WM and language/SLA has also identified and regrouped the array of WM span tasks currently available from cognitive psychology and neuroscience (e.g., [58,59]). Specifically, the P/E model [20] has stipulated that the simple (storage-only) versions of memory span tasks (e.g., digit span, nonword repetition span) are approximating phonological WM, while the complex (storage-plusprocessing) versions of memory span tasks serve as a proxy for executive WM. ...
... Despite its predominant reliance on cognitive WM models and span tasks in previous language and bilingualism/SLA research, the emotional or affective component of WM (AWM) has also received attention in general psychology, which has gradually made its forays into bilingualism research in recent years (e.g., [17]). In line with this new trend, we may also need to acknowledge and consider the potential interactions between cognition and emotion implicated in these traditional cognitive WM models and WM span tasks [58,59]. ...
Although emotional or affective working memory (WM) is quite well established in general psychology, not much research has looked into its potential implications for the language sciences and bilingualism and second language acquisition (SLA) research until recently. To fill this gap, this paper aims to propose that WM has not just cognitive implications, but its affective dimension may also make complementary and unique contributions to language and bilingualism/SLA research. Towards this end, we first briefly synthesize the cognitive views of WM conceptions and assessment procedures in the current language sciences and bilingualism/SLA research. Next, we turn to discuss the theoretical models and assumptions of affective WM and explore their theoretical implications for bilingualism/SLA research based on emerging empirical evidence. Then, we propose a conceptual framework integrating cognitive and affective WM perspectives and further provide guidelines for designing affective WM span tasks that can be used in future affective WM–language research, focusing on the construction procedures of several emotion-based affective WM span tasks (e.g., the emotional reading span task, the emotional operation span task, and the emotional symmetry span task) as examples. Overall, we argue that affective feelings are also an integral part of the mental representations held in WM and future research in the language sciences and bilingualism/SLA should incorporate both cognitive and affective WM dimensions.
... A reader needs to direct and maintain attention to the text, allocate attentional resources to the mechanics of reading (oculomotor control, decoding, word recognition, etc.), as well as to higher-level processes such as retaining pertinent textual information active in memory to form mental representations of the content (Martin et al., 2020;Shin, 2020). These representations are then subject to constant updating from further incoming input, as the reader gathers new pieces of information from subsequent parts of the text and engages in an ongoing integration process (Burgoyne et al., 2022). Indeed, a strong correlation between WM and reading comprehension has consistently shown that better WM predicts better comprehension (Butterfuss & Kendeou, 2018;Carretti et al., 2009;Daneman & Carpenter, 1980;Turner & Engle, 1989). ...
The comprehension of irony involves a sophisticated inferential process requiring language users to go beyond the literal meaning of an utterance. Because of its complex nature, we hypothesized that working memory (WM) and fluid intelligence, the two main components of executive attention, would be involved in the understanding of irony: the former by maintaining focus and relevant information active during processing, the latter by disengaging irrelevant information and offering better problem-solving skills. In this eye-tracking reading experiment, we investigated how adults (N = 57) process verbal irony, based on their executive attention skills. The results indicated a null (or indirect) effect for WM, while fluid intelligence directly modulated the comprehension and processing of irony during reading. As fluid intelligence is an important individual-difference variable, the findings pave the way for future research on developmental and clinical populations who tend to struggle with nonliteral language.
Every utterance in discourse we produce arises from the interaction of numerous cognitive functions, such as semantic memory, where we store the meanings of words, executive function and working memory as required for maintenance of a discourse goal, and social cognitive abilities, such as mind-reading capacity as required for tuning what we say to what others know or believe. In this way, a single utterance potentially integrates very different cognitive capacities into a basic discourse processing unit. This suggests that discourse processing and management is a very rich phenomenon that requires a multidimensional approach. We propose that a model of discourse management is comprised of three primary components that interact synergistically: (i) dynamicity, (ii) predictability, and (iii) meta-representationality. Cognitive functions play a pivotal role in the underlying processes, contributing to the development and unfolding of discourse. Understanding the correspondence between individual differences in discourse management (i.e., discourse perception and production) and cognitive functions can shed light on the intricate relationship between language and cognition in discourse management, as well as the appropriate psychometric measures to address this complex interaction. This narrative review presents aspects of discourse management, psychometric measures to comprehensively address these aspects. We close with a discussion of challenges and open questions.
The goal of this study was to provide meaningful insights in the algorithms of statistical and computational modeling in natural language processing, by emphasizing the role of expectation in human language comprehension. To obtain the evidence for expectation-based sentence comprehension in Korean, we revisited Lee's study [1, 2] in which the processing of Korean relative-clause sentences was tested. In Study 1, using Lee's materials, we conducted gated cloze tasks by which the conditional probability of a target constituent was computed at each point in a way that a word was incrementally added to a sentence fragment. Then, the patterns of the computed conditional probabilities of target constituents were compared to those of the reading times of target constituents that Lee had observed. In Study 2, we examined whether the patterns of the expectation-based sentence processing that we observed in Study 1 was modulated by readers' working memory capacity. Finally, in Study 3, an fMRI study was conducted to explore the locus of expectation-based sentence processing in brain. We found that the patterns of conditional probabilities were mapped to those of behavioral reading times, but we did not observe individual differences in expectation-based comprehension. We also obtained neurological results suggesting that the Broca area is the locus for the processing of the expected syntactic information. Taken together, our behavioral and neurological findings provided evidence supporting expectation-based sentence comprehension in Korean.
For years, psychologists have wondered why people who are highly skilled in one cognitive domain tend to be skilled in other cognitive domains, too. In this article, we explain how attention control provides a common thread among broad cognitive abilities, including fluid intelligence, working memory capacity, and sensory discrimination. Attention control allows us to pursue our goals despite distractions and temptations, to deviate from the habitual, and to keep information in mind amid a maelstrom of divergent thought. Highlighting results from our lab, we describe the role of attention control in information maintenance and disengagement and how these functions contribute to performance in a variety of complex cognitive tasks. We also describe a recent undertaking in which we developed new and improved attention-control tasks, which had higher reliabilities, stronger intercorrelations, and higher loadings on a common factor than traditional measures. From an applied perspective, these new attention-control tasks show great promise for use in personnel selection assessments. We close by outlining exciting avenues for future research.
Establishing correlations among common inhibition tasks such as Stroop or flanker tasks has been proven quite difficult despite many attempts. It remains unknown whether this difficulty occurs because inhibition is a disparate set of phenomena or whether the analytical techiques to uncover a unified inhibition phenomenon fail in real-world contexts. In this paper, we explore the field-wide inability to assess whether inhibition is unified or disparate. We do so by showing that ordinary methods of correlating performance including those with latent variable models are doomed to fail because of trial noise (or, as it is sometimes called, measurement error). We then develop hierarchical models that account for variation across trials, variation across individuals, and covariation across individuals and tasks. These hierarchical models also fail to uncover correlations in typical designs for the same reasons. While we can charaterize the degree of trial noise, we cannot recover correlations in typical designs that enroll hundreds of people. We discuss possible improvements to study designs to help uncovering correlations, though we are not sure how feasible they are.
Cognitive tasks that produce reliable and robust effects at the group level often fail to yield reliable and valid individual differences. An ongoing debate among attention researchers is whether conflict resolution mechanisms are task-specific or domain-general, and the lack of correlation between most attention measures seems to favor the view that attention control is not a unitary concept. We have argued that the use of difference scores, particularly in reaction time (RT), is the primary cause of null and conflicting results at the individual differences level, and that methodological issues with existing tasks preclude making strong theoretical conclusions. The present article is an empirical test of this view in which we used a toolbox approach to develop and validate new tasks hypothesized to reflect attention processes. Here, we administered existing, modified, and new attention tasks to over 400 participants (final N = 396). Compared with the traditional Stroop and flanker tasks, performance on the accuracy-based measures was more reliable, had stronger intercorrelations, formed a more coherent latent factor, and had stronger associations to measures of working memory capacity and fluid intelligence. Further, attention control fully accounted for the relationship between working memory capacity and fluid intelligence. These results show that accuracy-based measures can be better suited to individual differences investigations than traditional RT tasks, particularly when the goal is to maximize prediction. We conclude that attention control is a unitary concept. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
The question of what cognitive processes contribute to fluid intelligence (Gf)—the ability to solve novel problems—continues to be central in intelligence research. Here, we considered the contribution of placekeeping, which is the ability to perform a sequence of steps in a prescribed order without omissions or repetitions. Placekeeping plays a role in problem solving but also rests on the ability to remember past performance, so it may simply reduce to working memory capacity (WMC). To investigate this possibility, we evaluated whether placekeeping accounts for individual differences in Gf above and beyond WMC. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that placekeeping ability accounted for 12% of the variance in Gf above and beyond WMC. By contrast, WMC accounted for only 2% of the variance in Gf above and beyond placekeeping ability. Structural equation modeling revealed that placekeeping ability and WMC are distinct at the latent variable level, and together they accounted for 77% of the variance in Gf. However, whereas placekeeping ability significantly predicted Gf in the structural equation model, WMC did not. In general, the results suggest that placekeeping ability is distinct from WMC and contributes substantially to individual differences in Gf.
This study uses a novel framework based on work by Shipstead, Harrison, and Engle (2016) that includes measures of both working memory capacity and fluid intelligence in an attempt to better understand the processes that influence successful reading comprehension at the latent level. Further, we extend this framework to a second educationally relevant ability: second-language vocabulary learning. A large sample of young adults received a battery of working memory, fluid intelligence, language comprehension, and memory updating tasks. The results indicate that individual differences in reading comprehension and vocabulary learning benefit from the ability to maintain active information, as well as to disengage from no longer relevant information. Subsequently, we provide an interpretation of our results based on the maintenance and disengagement framework proposed by Shipstead et al. (2016). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
In modern individual-difference studies, researchers often correlate performance on various tasks to uncover common latent processes. Yet, in some sense, the results have been disappointing as correlations among tasks that seemingly have processes in common are often low. A pressing question then is whether these attenuated correlations reflect statistical considerations, such as a lack of individual variability on tasks, or substantive considerations, such as that inhibition in different tasks is not a unified concept. One problem in addressing this question is that researchers aggregate performance across trials to tally individual-by-task scores. It is tempting to think that aggregation is fine and that everything comes out in the wash. But as shown here, this aggregation may greatly attenuate measures of effect size and correlation. We propose an alternative analysis of task performance that is based on accounting for trial-by-trial variability along with the covariation of individuals’ performance across tasks. The implementation is through common hierarchical models, and this treatment rescues classical concepts of effect size, reliability, and correlation for studying individual differences with experimental tasks. Using recent data from Hedge et al. Behavioral Research Methods, 50(3), 1166–1186, 2018 we show that there is Bayes-factor support for a lack of correlation between the Stroop and flanker task. This support for a lack of correlation indicates a psychologically relevant result—Stroop and flanker inhibition are seemingly unrelated, contradicting unified concepts of inhibition.
Reaction time is believed to be a good indicator of the speed and efficiency of mental processes and is a ubiquitous variable in the behavioral sciences. Despite this popularity, there are numerous issues associated with using reaction time (RT), specifically in differential and developmental research. Here, we identify and focus on two main problems-unreliability and sensitivity to speed-accuracy interactions. The use of difference scores is a primary factor that leads to many RT measures having demonstrably low reliability, and RT measures in general often do not properly account for speed-accuracy interactions. Both factors jeopardize the validity and interpretability of results based on RT. Here, we evaluate conceptually and empirically how these issues affect individual differences research. Although the empirical evidence we provide are primarily within the domains of attention control and task switching, we highlight examples from various other areas of psychological inquiry. We also discuss many of the statistical and methodological alternatives available to researchers conducting correlational studies. Ultimately, we encourage researchers comparing individuals of differing cognitive and developmental levels to strongly consider using these alternatives in lieu of RT, specifically RT difference scores.
This study provides the first analyses connecting individual differences in infant attention to reading achievement through the development of executive functioning (EF) in infancy and early childhood. Five‐month‐old infants observed a video, and peak look duration and shift rate were video coded and assessed. At 10 months, as well as 3, 4, and 6 years, children completed age‐appropriate EF tasks (A‐not‐B task, hand game, forward digit span, backwards digit span, and number Stroop). Children also completed a standardized reading assessment and a measure of verbal intelligence (IQ) at age 6. Path analyses on 157 participants showed that infant attention had a direct statistical predictive effect on EF at 10 months, with EF showing a continuous pattern of development from 10 months to 6 years. EF and verbal IQ at 6 years had a direct effect on reading achievement. Further, executive functioning at all time points mediated the relation between 5 month attention and reading achievement. These findings may inform reading interventions by suggesting earlier intervention time points and specific cognitive processes (i.e., 5 month attention).
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In 2 experiments the authors examined whether individual differences in working-memory (WM) capacity are related to attentional control. Experiment 1 tested high- and low-WM-span (high-span and low-span) participants in a prosaccade task, in which a visual cue appeared in the same location as a subsequent to-be-identified target letter, and in an antisaccade task, in which a target appeared opposite the cued location. Span groups identified targets equally well in the prosaccade task, reflecting equivalence in automatic orienting. However, low-span participants were slower and less accurate than high-span participants in the antisaccade task, reflecting differences in attentional control. Experiment 2 measured eye movements across a long antisaccade session. Low-span participants made slower and more erroneous saccades than did high-span participants. In both experiments, low-span participants performed poorly when task switching from antisaccade to prosaccade blocks. The findings support a controlled-attention view of WM capacity.
Inhibition is often conceptualized as a unitary construct reflecting the ability to ignore and suppress irrelevant information. At the same time, it has been subdivided into inhibition of prepotent responses (i.e., the ability to stop dominant responses) and resistance to distracter interference (i.e., the ability to ignore distracting information). The present study investigated the unity and diversity of inhibition as a psychometric construct, and tested the hypothesis of an inhibition deficit in older age. We measured inhibition in young and old adults with 11 established laboratory tasks: antisaccade, stop-signal, color Stroop, number Stroop, arrow flanker, letter flanker, Simon, global-local, positive and negative compatibility tasks, and n-2 repetition costs in task switching. In both age groups, the inhibition measures from individual tasks had good reliabilities, but correlated only weakly among each other. Structural equation modeling identified a 2-factor model with factors for inhibition of prepotent responses and resistance to distracter interference. Older adults scored worse in the inhibition of prepotent response, but better in the resistance to distracter interference. However, the model had low explanatory power. Together, these findings call into question inhibition as a psychometric construct and the hypothesis of an inhibition deficit in older age. (PsycINFO Database Record
Individual differences in cognitive paradigms are increasingly employed to relate cognition to brain structure, chemistry, and function. However, such efforts are often unfruitful, even with the most well established tasks. Here we offer an explanation for failures in the application of robust cognitive paradigms to the study of individual differences. Experimental effects become well established - and thus those tasks become popular - when between-subject variability is low. However, low between-subject variability causes low reliability for individual differences, destroying replicable correlations with other factors and potentially undermining published conclusions drawn from correlational relationships. Though these statistical issues have a long history in psychology, they are widely overlooked in cognitive psychology and neuroscience today. In three studies, we assessed test-retest reliability of seven classic tasks: Eriksen Flanker, Stroop, stop-signal, go/no-go, Posner cueing, Navon, and Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Code (SNARC). Reliabilities ranged from 0 to .82, being surprisingly low for most tasks given their common use. As we predicted, this emerged from low variance between individuals rather than high measurement variance. In other words, the very reason such tasks produce robust and easily replicable experimental effects - low between-participant variability - makes their use as correlational tools problematic. We demonstrate that taking such reliability estimates into account has the potential to qualitatively change theoretical conclusions. The implications of our findings are that well-established approaches in experimental psychology and neuropsychology may not directly translate to the study of individual differences in brain structure, chemistry, and function, and alternative metrics may be required.
Working memory capacity is an important construct in psychology because of its relationship with many higher-order cognitive abilities and psychopathologies. Working memory capacity is often measured using a type of paradigm known as complex span. Some recent work has focused on shortening the administration time of the complex span tasks, resulting in different versions of these tasks being used (Foster et al., 2015; Oswald, McAbee, Redick, & Hambrick, 2015). Variations in the complex span tasks, such as the number of set sizes, can lead to varying power to discriminate individuals at different ability levels. Thus, research findings may be inconsistent across populations due to differing appropriateness for the ability levels. The present study uses a combination of item response theory and correlational analyses to better understand the psychometric properties of the operation span, symmetry span, and rotation span. The findings show that the typical administration of these tasks, particularly the operation span, is not suitable for above average ability samples (Study 1; n = 573). When larger set sizes are added to the tasks (Study 2; n = 351), predictive validity and discriminability is improved for all complex span tasks, however the operation span is still inferior to the spatial tasks. The authors make several conclusions about which tasks and set sizes should be used depending on the intended population, and further suggest avoiding the standard-length operation span for average or higher ability populations.
Working memory capacity and fluid intelligence have been demonstrated to be strongly correlated traits. Typically, high working memory capacity is believed to facilitate reasoning through accurate maintenance of relevant information. In this article, we present a proposal reframing this issue, such that tests of working memory capacity and fluid intelligence are seen as measuring complementary processes that facilitate complex cognition. Respectively, these are the ability to maintain access to critical information and the ability to disengage from or block outdated information. In the realm of problem solving, high working memory capacity allows a person to represent and maintain a problem accurately and stably, so that hypothesis testing can be conducted. However, as hypotheses are disproven or become untenable, disengaging from outdated problem solving attempts becomes important so that new hypotheses can be generated and tested. From this perspective, the strong correlation between working memory capacity and fluid intelligence is due not to one ability having a causal influence on the other but to separate attention-demanding mental functions that can be contrary to one another but are organized around top-down processing goals.
A study was conducted in which 133 participants performed 11 memory tasks (some thought to reflect working memory and some thought to reflect short-term memory), 2 tests of general fluid intelligence, and the Verbal and Quantitative Scholastic Aptitude Tests. Structural equation modeling suggested that short-term and working memories reflect separate but highly related constructs and that many of the tasks used in the literature as working memory tasks reflect a common construct. Working memory shows a strong connection to fluid intelligence, but short-term memory does not. A theory of working memory capacity and general fluid intelligence is proposed: The authors argue that working memory capacity and fluid intelligence reflect the ability to keep a representation active, particularly in the face of interference and distraction. The authors also discuss the relationship of this capability to controlled attention, and the functions of the prefrontal cortex.
Working memory capacity is one of the most frequently measured individual difference constructs in cognitive psychology and related fields. However, implementation of complex span and other working memory measures is generally time-consuming for administrators and examinees alike. Because researchers often must manage the tension between limited testing time and measuring numerous constructs reliably, a short and effective measure of working memory capacity would often be a major practical benefit in future research efforts. The current study developed a shortened computerized domain-general measure of working memory capacity by representatively sampling items from three existing complex working memory span tasks: operation span, reading span, and symmetry span. Using a large archival data set (Study 1, N = 4,845), we developed and applied a principled strategy for developing the reduced measure, based on testing a series of confirmatory factor analysis models. Adequate fit indices from these models lent support to this strategy. The resulting shortened measure was then administered to a second independent sample (Study 2, N = 172), demonstrating that the new measure saves roughly 15 min (30 %) of testing time on average, and even up to 25 min depending on the test-taker. On the basis of these initial promising findings, several directions for future research are discussed.
Measures of working memory capacity (WMC), such as complex span tasks (e.g., operation span), have become some of the most frequently used tasks in cognitive psychology. However, due to the length of time it takes to complete these tasks many researchers trying to draw conclusions about WMC forgo properly administering multiple tasks. But can the complex span tasks be shortened to take less administration time? We address this question by splitting the tasks into three blocks of trials, and analyzing each block's contribution to measuring WMC and predicting fluid intelligence (Gf). We found that all three blocks of trials contributed similarly to the tasks' ability to measure WMC and Gf, and the tasks can therefore be substantially shortened without changing what they measure. In addition, we found that cutting the number of trials by 67 % in a battery of these tasks still accounted for 90 % of the variance in their measurement of Gf. We discuss our findings in light of administering the complex span tasks in a method that can maximize their accuracy in measuring WMC, while minimizing the time taken to administer.
In shadowing one of two simultaneous messages presented dichotically, subjects are unable to report any of the content of the rejected message. Even if the rejected message consists of a short list of simple words repeated many times, a recognition test fails to reveal any trace of the list. If numbers are interpolated in prose passages presented for dichotic shadowing, no more are recalled from the rejected messages if the instructions are specifically to remember numbers than if the instructions are general: a specific set for numbers will not break through the attentional barrier set up in this task. The only stimulus so far found that will break through this barrier is the subject's own name. It is probably only material “important” to the subject that will break through the barrier.
Examines procedures previously recommended by various authors for the estimation of "change" scores, "residual," or "basefree" measures of change, and other kinds of difference scores. A procedure proposed by F. M. Lord is extended to obtain more precise estimates, and an alternative to the L. R. Tucker, F. Damarin, and S. A. Messick (see 41:3) procedure is offered. A consideration of the purposes for which change measures have been sought in the past leads to a series of recommended procedures which solve research and personnel-decision problems without estimation of change scores for individuals. (22 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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This reprinted article originally appeared in the Journal of Experimental Psychology,
1935, Vol 18, 643–662. The following abstract of the original article appeared in PA, Vol 10:1863.) In this study pairs of conflicting stimuli, both being inherent aspects of the same symbols, were presented simultaneously (a name of one color printed in the ink of another color—a word stimulus and a color stimulus). The difference in time for reading the words printed in colors and the same words printed in black is the measure of the interference of color stimuli on reading words. The difference in the time for naming the colors in which the words are printed and the same colors printed in squares is the measure of the interference of conflicting word stimuli on naming colors. The interference of conflicting color stimuli on the time for reading 100 words (each word naming a color unlike the ink-color of its print) caused an increase of 2.3 sec or 5.6% over the normal time for reading the same words printed in black. This increase is not reliable, but the interference of conflicting word stimuli on the time for naming 100 colors (each color being the print of a word which names another color) caused an increase of 47.0 sec or 74.3% of the normal time for naming colors printed in squares.… (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Argues that the semantic structure of texts can be described both at the local microlevel and at a more global macrolevel. A model for text comprehension based on this notion accounts for the formation of a coherent semantic text base in terms of a cyclical process constrained by limitations of working memory. Furthermore, the model includes macro-operators, whose purpose is to reduce the information in a text base to its gist—the theoretical macrostructure. These operations are under the control of a schema, which is a theoretical formulation of the comprehender's goals. The macroprocesses are predictable only when the control schema can be made explicit. On the production side, the model is concerned with the generation of recall and summarization protocols. This process is partly reproductive and partly constructive, involving the inverse operation of the macro-operators. The model is applied to a paragraph from a psychological research report, and methods for the empirical testing of the model are developed. (55 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In 3 experiments, the nature of the events that interfere with spatial working memory was examined in order to clarify the roles of imagery, attention. and other processes in the short-term maintenance of location information. Looking and pointing at secondary task stimuli selectively interfered with memory for the locations of primary task stimuli. Secondary tasks that involved either mentally rotating primary task stimuli or making color or shape discriminations about primary or secondary task stimuli interfered with spatial working memory only if the required response was visually guided, but not if the response was verbal. Taken together, these findings support P. S. Goldman-Rakic's (1987) hypothesis regarding multiple representational domains and are consistent with known properties and connections of neurons believed to subserve the perception and maintenance of spatial information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Why do some individuals learn more quickly than others, or perform better in complex cognitive tasks? In this article, we describe how differential and experimental research methods can be used to study intelligence in humans and non-human animals. More than one hundred years ago, Spearman (1904) discovered a general factor underpinning performance across cognitive domains in humans. Shortly thereafter, Thorndike (1935) discovered positive correlations between cognitive performance measures in the albino rat. Today, research continues to shed light on the underpinnings of the positive manifold observed among ability measures. In this review, we focus on the relationship between cognitive performance and attention control: the domain-general ability to maintain focus on task-relevant information while preventing attentional capture by task-irrelevant thoughts and events. Recent work from our laboratory has revealed that individual differences in attention control can largely explain the positive associations between broad cognitive abilities such as working memory capacity and fluid intelligence. In research on mice, attention control has been closely linked to a general ability factor reflecting route learning and problem solving. Taken together, both lines of research suggest that individual differences in attention control underpin performance in a variety of complex cognitive tasks, helping to explain why measures of cognitive ability correlate positively. Efforts to find confirmatory and dis-confirmatory evidence across species stands to improve not only our understanding of attention control, but cognition in general.
This paper is an attempt to provide a brief guide to major conceptual and statistical problems that are unique to the study of individual differences in intelligence and various intellectual abilities, in the context of laboratory experimental studies, and to suggest strategies to successfully navigate these problems. Such studies are generally designed so that the goal is to evaluate the relationships between individual differences in basic task performance or related markers on the one hand, and individual differences in intellectual abilities on the other hand. Issues discussed in this paper include: restriction-of-range in talent, method variance and facet theory; speed vs. power; regression to the mean; extreme-groups designs; difference scores; differences in correlations; significant vs. meaningful correlations; factor- pure tests; and criterion variables. A list of representative “do” and “don't” recommendations is provided to help guide the design and evaluation of laboratory studies.
The construct of response control or response inhibition is one of the cornerstones of modern cognitive psychology, featuring prominently in theories of executive functioning and impulsive behaviour. However, repeated failures to observe correlations between commonly applied tasks have led some theorists to question whether common or overlapping response conflict processes even exist. A challenge to answering this question is that behaviour is multifaceted, with both conflict and non-conflict processes (e.g. strategy, processing speed) contributing to individual differences. Here, we use a cognitive model to dissociate these processes; the diffusion model for conflict tasks (Ulrich et al., 2015). In a meta-analysis of fits to 7 empirical datasets, we observed weak (rho<.05) correlations between tasks in parameters reflecting conflict processing, seemingly challenging a general control construct. However, we saw consistent positive correlations in parameters representing processing speed and strategy. We then use model simulations to evaluate whether correlations in behavioural costs are diagnostic of the presence or absence of common mechanisms of conflict processing. We compare correlations in simulated behaviour in scenarios where we impose correlations in conflict parameters to scenarios in which only non-conflict parameters are correlated. We find that correlations in behaviour are neither necessary nor sufficient evidence for correlations in conflict parameters. Our data provide converging evidence to claims that non-conflict processes contribute substantially to individual differences in conflict tasks and illustrate that correlations between conflict tasks are only weakly informative about common conflict mechanisms.
It is well established that measures of reasoning ability and of working memory capacity (WMC) correlate positively. However, the question of what explains this relationship remains open. The purpose of this study was to investigate the capacity hypothesis, which ascribes causality to WMC. This hypothesis holds that people high in WMC are more successful in capacity-demanding cognitive tasks than people lower in WMC because they can temporarily maintain more information in the form of sub-goals, hypotheses, and partial solutions. Accordingly, this hypothesis predicts that the correlation between WMC and reasoning performance should increase as the capacity demands of the reasoning items increase. We tested this prediction using items from Raven’s Progressive Matrices and two measures of WMC, complex span and the k estimate from the Visual Arrays task. Neither WMC measure showed the effect predicted by the capacity hypothesis. Furthermore, the results cannot be attributed to restriction of range in performance on the individual reasoning items. This finding adds to existing evidence calling into question the capacity hypothesis, and, more generally, the view that WMC has a causal influence on fluid intelligence.
This publication is the opening number of a series which the Psychometric Society proposes to issue. It reports the first large experimental inquiry, carried out by the methods of factor analysis described by Thurstone in The Vectors of the Mind
1. The work was made possible by financial grants from the Social Science Research Committee of the University of Chicago, the American Council of Education, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The results are eminently worthy of the assistance so generously accorded. Thurstone’s previous theoretical account, lucid and comprehensive as it is, is intelligible only to those who have a knowledge of matrix algebra. Hence his methods have become known to British educationists chiefly from the monograph published by W. P. Alexander8. This enquiry has provoked a good deal of criticism, particularly from Professor Spearman’s school ; and differs, as a matter of fact, from Thurstone’s later expositions. Hence it is of the greatest value to have a full and simple illustration of his methods, based on a concrete inquiry, from Professor Thurstone himself.
It is generally agreed upon that the mechanisms underlying task switching heavily depend on working memory, yet numerous studies have failed to show a strong relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and task-switching ability. We argue that this relationship does indeed exist but that the dependent variable used to measure task switching is problematic. To support our claim, we reanalyzed data from two studies with a new scoring procedure that combines reaction time (RT) and accuracy into a single score. The reanalysis revealed a strong relationship between task switching and WMC that was not present when RT-based switch costs were used as the dependent variable. We discuss the theoretical implications of this finding along with the potential uses and limitations of the scoring procedure we used. More broadly, we emphasize the importance of using measures that incorporate speed and accuracy in other areas of research, particularly in comparisons of subjects differing in cognitive and developmental levels.
This chapter presents a collection of theoretical and empirical arguments against the separation of testing from a theory of cognition. It describes a general model of cognition and presents some of its implications for individual differences. The chapter presents a number of experiments, which relate the model to the present tests of intelligence and considers the implications of these results for both psychometrics and cognitive psychology, indicating some directions for future research. The theoretical model used is the Distributed Memory model, which is representative of a class of models acceptable to the majority of experimental psychologists interested in cognition. The theoretical approach underlying the distributed memory model is that the brain can be thought of as a computing system, and that as such it has a physical and implied logical construction which is called its system architecture. The physical structures comprising the system architecture are exercised by control processes analogous to programs in an actual computer.
The current state of A.D. Baddeley and G.J. Hitch's (1974) multicomponent working memory model is reviewed. The phonological and visuospatial subsystems have been extensively investigated, leading both to challenges over interpretation of individual phenomena and to more detailed attempts to model the processes underlying the subsystems. Analysis of the controlling central executive has proved more challenging, leading to a proposed clarification in which the executive is assumed to be a limited capacity attentional system, aided by a newly postulated fourth system, the episodic buffer. Current interest focuses most strongly on the link between working memory and long-term memory and on the processes allowing the integration of information from the component subsystems. The model has proved valuable in accounting for data from a wide range of participant groups under a rich array of task conditions. Working memory does still appear to be working.
The extent to which individual differences in working memory capacity were related to differences in comprehension and following direction was studied in first, third, and sixth graders. Working memory was tested by a simple word span and Daneman and Carpenter’s (1980) reading span. A reading comprehension test and a following directions test, including directions heard in a classroom, were also given. The number of words recalled in both the word span and the reading span predicted comprehension for all grades. This relationship showed no age differences. However, the relationship between the span measures and following directions indicated that the role of working memory in following directions may increase with age. As the complexity of directions increased, low-span subjects in each grade had more difficulty performing directions than high-span subjects did. Implications for giving directions to school children are discussed.
The question of what underlies individual differences in general intelligence has never been satisfactorily answered. The purpose of this research was to investigate the role of an executive function that we term placekeeping ability—the ability to perform the steps of a complex task in a prescribed order without skipping or repeating steps. Participants completed a newly developed test of placekeeping ability, called the UNRAVEL task. The measure of placekeeping ability from this task (error rate) predicted a measure of fluid intelligence (Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices score), above and beyond measures of working memory capacity, task switching, and multitasking. An existing model of Raven’s performance suggests that placekeeping ability supports the systematic exploration of hypotheses under problem-solving conditions.
The complex span measure of working memory is a word/digit span measured while performing a secondary task. Two experiments investigated whether correlations between the complex span and reading comprehension depend on the nature of the secondary task and individual skill in that task. The secondary task did not have to be reading related for the span to predict reading comprehension. An arithmetic-related secondary task led to correlations with reading comprehension similar to those found when the secondary task was reading. The relationship remained significant when quantitative skills were factored out of the complex span/comprehension correlations. Simple digit and word spans (measured without a background task) did not correlate with reading comprehension and SAT scores. The second experiment showed that the complex span/comprehension correlations were a function of the difficulty of the background task. When the difficulty level of the reading-related or arithmetic-related background tasks was moderate, the span/comprehension correlations were higher in magnitude than when the background tasks were very simple, or, were very difficult.
The term working memory refers to a brain system that provides temporary storage and manipulation of the information necessary
for such complex cognitive tasks as language comprehension, learning, and reasoning. This definition has evolved from the
concept of a unitary short-term memory system. Working memory has been found to require the simultaneous storage and processing
of information. It can be divided into the following three subcomponents: (i) the central executive, which is assumed to be
an attentional-controlling system, is important in skills such as chess playing and is particularly susceptible to the effects
of Alzheimer's disease; and two slave systems, namely (ii) the visuospatial sketch pad, which manipulates visual images and
(iii) the phonological loop, which stores and rehearses speech-based information and is necessary for the acquisition of both
native and second-language vocabulary.
This paper presents a meta-analysis of the data from 6,179 participants in 77 studies that investigated the association between working-memory capacity and language comprehension ability. A primary goal of the meta-analysis was to compare the predictive power of the measures of working memory developed by Daneman and Carpenter (1980) with the predictive power of other measures of working memory. The results of the meta-analysis support Daneman and Carpenter's (1980) claim that measures that tap the combined processing and storage capacity of working memory (e.g., reading span, listening span) are better predictors of comprehension than are measures that tap only the storage capacity (e.g., word span, digit span). The meta-analysis also showed that math process plus storage measures of working memory are good predictors of comprehension. Thus, the superior predictive power of the process plus storage measures is not limited to measures that involve the manipulation of words and sentences.
Sample correlations converge to the population value with increasing sample size, but the estimates are often inaccurate in small samples. In this report we use Monte-Carlo simulations to determine the critical sample size from which on the magnitude of a correlation can be expected to be stable. The necessary sample size to achieve stable estimates for correlations depends on the effect size, the width of the corridor of stability (i.e., a corridor around the true value where deviations are tolerated), and the requested confidence that the trajectory does not leave this corridor any more. Results indicate that in typical scenarios the sample size should approach 250 for stable estimates.
Working memory is a construct of primary relevance to many areas of psychology. Two types of tasks have been used to measure working memory, primarily in different research areas: Complex span tasks are commonly used in behavioral studies in the cognitive and individual-differences literature, whereas n-back tasks have been used more frequently in cognitive neuroscience studies investigating the neural underpinnings of working memory. Despite both categories of tasks being labeled as "working memory" measures, previous empirical studies have provided mixed evidence regarding the shared amount of overlapping processes between complex span and n-back tasks. The present meta-analysis showed that the complex span and n-back tasks are weakly correlated, although significant heterogeneity across studies was observed. A follow-up analysis of unpublished data indicated that the sample composition affects the relationship between the complex span and n-back tasks, following the law of diminishing returns. Finally, a separate meta-analysis indicated that the simple span and n-back tasks are correlated to the same extent as are the complex span and n-back tasks. The present findings indicate that the complex span and n-back tasks cannot be used interchangeably as working memory measures in research applications.
This study investigates the relationship between working memory and language in young children growing up in a multilingual environment. The aim is to explore whether mechanisms of short-term storage and cognitive control hold similar relations to emerging language skills and to investigate if potential links are mediated by related cognitive abilities. A sample of 119 Luxembourgish 6-year-olds completed several assessments of working memory (complex and simple span), native and foreign vocabulary, syntax, reading, rhyme awareness, and fluid intelligence. Results showed that short-term storage and cognitive control manifested differential links with developing language abilities: Whereas verbal short-term storage was specifically linked to vocabulary; cognitive control manifested unique and robust links with syntax and early reading development. The study suggests that in young children the working memory system is composed of separate but interacting components corresponding to short-term storage and cognitive control that can be distinguished by the roles they play in supporting language acquisition.
Ages 11-17. 1 form. 26 (44) min. Manual, profile sheet. (See
J. consult. Psychol., 1947,
11, 340.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Twelve good readers and 12 poor readers, 10-y4-olds, were given memory span tests, and memory scanning tests, in both auditory and visual modalities. Their concept of a letter pattern was also tested. The major finding was that short-term memory (STM) function deteriorated over time in the poor reading group. When modality was switched the good readers showed a release from proactive inhibition (PI); the poor readers did not. Among good readers, memory scanning in the auditory modality occurred at about the same speed as memory scanning in the visual modality; among the poor readers, auditory speed gradually lagged relative to visual rates. Poor readers were more likely (than good readers) to lack the concept of a letter pattern. Stepwise regressions showed that different patterns of variables were assocated with different types of reading errors. Implicatios for model construction were discussed.