Individual differences in working memory capacity and enumeration

Two experiments are reported in which subjects performed working memory and enumeration tasks. In the first experiment, subjects scoring low on the working memory task also performed poorly on the attention-demanding “counting” portion of the enumeration task. Yet no span differences were found for the non-attention-demanding “subitizing” portion. In Experiment 2, conjunctive and disjunctive distractors were added to the enumeration task. Although both high and low working memory span subjects were adversely affected by the addition of conjunctive distractors, the effect was much greater for the low-span subjects. Implications from these findings are that differences in working memory capacity correspond to differences in capability for controlled attention.

[1]  N. Cowan.  Evolving conceptions of memory storage, selective attention, and their mutual constraints within the human information-processing system. , 1988, Psychological bulletin.

[2]  Randall W. Engle,et al.  Working-memory capacity as long-term memory activation: An individual-differences approach. , 1993 .

[3]  R. Engle,et al.  Individual differences in working memory capacity and what they tell us about controlled attention, general fluid intelligence, and functions of the prefrontal cortex. , 1999 .

[4]  A. Treisman,et al.  Conjunction search revisited , 1990 .

[5]  Patrick C. Kyllonen,et al.  Reasoning ability is (little more than) working-memory capacity?! , 1990 .

[6]  David J. Therriault,et al.  A latent variable analysis of working memory capacity, short-term memory capacity, processing speed, and general fluid intelligence , 2002 .

[7]  W. STANLEY JEVONS,et al.  The Power of Numerical Discrimination , 1871, Nature.

[8]  M. Just,et al.  Individual differences in syntactic processing: The role of working memory , 1991 .

[9]  R. Engle,et al.  The role of working memory capacity in retrieval. , 1997, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[10]  Z. Pylyshyn,et al.  What enumeration studies can show us about spatial attention: evidence for limited capacity preattentive processing. , 1993, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[11]  T. Salthouse,et al.  Meta-analyses of age-cognition relations in adulthood: estimates of linear and nonlinear age effects and structural models. , 1997, Psychological bulletin.

[12]  A. Treisman,et al.  A feature-integration theory of attention , 1980, Cognitive Psychology.

[13]  P. Carpenter,et al.  Individual differences in working memory and reading , 1980 .

[14]  Randall W. Engle,et al.  Working Memory Capacity and Suppression , 1998 .

[15]  K. A. Ericsson,et al.  Long-Term Working Memory as an Alternative to Capacity Models of Working Memory in Everyday Skilled Performance , 1999 .

[16]  D. Klahr,et al.  Span and rate of apprehension in children and adults. , 1975, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[17]  Z. Pylyshyn.  Some primitive mechanisms of spatial attention , 1994, Cognition.

[18]  R. Engle,et al.  Working-memory capacity, proactive interference, and divided attention: limits on long-term memory retrieval. , 2000, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[19]  L. Kaufman,et al.  Handbook of perception and human performance , 1986 .

[20]  Andrew R. A. Conway,et al.  Working memory and retrieval: a resource-dependent inhibition model. , 1994, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[21]  Andrew R. A. Conway,et al.  The effect of memory load on negative priming: An individual differences investigation , 1999, Memory & cognition.

[22]  Susan L. Franzel,et al.  Guided search: an alternative to the feature integration model for visual search. , 1989, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[23]  M. Just,et al.  Working memory constraints on the processing of syntactic ambiguity , 1992, Cognitive Psychology.

[24]  R. Engle,et al.  Is working memory capacity task dependent , 1989 .

[25]  Randall W Engle,et al.  Working memory, short-term memory, and general fluid intelligence: a latent-variable approach. , 1999, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[26]  A Treisman,et al.  Feature analysis in early vision: evidence from search asymmetries. , 1988, Psychological review.

[27]  L. Kaufman,et al.  Handbook of Perception and Human Performance. Volume 2. Cognitive Processes and Performance , 1994 .

[28]  Z. Pylyshyn,et al.  Why are small and large numbers enumerated differently? A limited-capacity preattentive stage in vision. , 1994, Psychological review.

[29]  N. Cowan.  Attention and Memory: An Integrated Framework , 1995 .

[30]  Anne Treisman,et al.  Properties, Parts, and Objects , 1986 .

[31]  A. Miyake,et al.  Models of Working Memory: Mechanisms of Active Maintenance and Executive Control , 1999 .

[32]  K. A. Ericsson,et al.  Long-term working memory. , 1995, Psychological review.