Chunking in Working Memory and its Relationship to Intelligence

Short-term memory and working memory are two distinct concepts that have been measured in simple and complex span tasks respectively. A new span task was designed to manipulate a chunking factor while using a procedure similar to simple span tasks. This span task allowed studying the interaction between storage and processing in working memory, when processing is fully dedicated to optimizing storage. The main hypothesis was that the storage × processing interaction that can be induced by the chunking factor is an excellent indicator of intelligence because both working memory and intelligence depend on optimizing storage. Two experiments used an adaptation of the SIMON® game in which chunking opportunities were estimated using an algorithmic complexity metric. The results show that the metric can be used to predict memory performance and that intelligence is well predicted by the new chunking span task in comparison to other simple and complex span tasks.

[1]  Jean-Paul Delahaye,et al.  Numerical evaluation of algorithmic complexity for short strings: A glance into the innermost structure of randomness , 2011, Appl. Math. Comput..

[2]  A. Owen,et al.  Prefrontal cortical involvement in verbal encoding strategies , 2004, The European journal of neuroscience.

[3]  Jean-Paul Delahaye,et al.  Algorithmic complexity for short binary strings applied to psychology: a primer , 2011, Behavior Research Methods.

[4]  Complex Working Memory Span in Cochlear Implanted and Normal Hearing Teenagers , 2013, Otology & neurotology : official publication of the American Otological Society, American Neurotology Society [and] European Academy of Otology and Neurotology.

[5]  Adrian M Owen,et al.  A common prefrontal-parietal network for mnemonic and mathematical recoding strategies within working memory. , 2007, Cerebral cortex.

[6]  D. Wechsler,et al.  Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV) , 2010 .

[7]  Richard P. Heitz,et al.  Complex working memory span tasks and higher-order cognition: A latent-variable analysis of the relationship between processing and storage , 2009, Memory.

[8]  J. Raven.  Advanced progressive matrices : sets I and II , 1962 .

[9]  Justin Halberda,et al.  Conceptual knowledge increases infants' memory capacity , 2008, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[10]  Stephan Lewandowsky,et al.  A working memory test battery for MATLAB , 2010, Behavior research methods.

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

[12]  R. Engle,et al.  The nature of individual differences in working memory capacity: active maintenance in primary memory and controlled search from secondary memory. , 2007, Psychological review.

[13]  G. A. Miller.  The magical number seven plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity for processing information. , 1956, Psychological review.

[14]  H. Simon,et al.  Recall of rapidly presented random chess positions is a function of skill , 1996, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[15]  Jeffrey N Rouder,et al.  Models of verbal working memory capacity: what does it take to make them work? , 2012, Psychological review.

[16]  Jean-Paul Delahaye,et al.  Correspondence and Independence of Numerical Evaluations of Algorithmic Information Measures , 2012, Comput..

[17]  F. Gobet,et al.  Functional cerebral reorganization: a signature of expertise? Reexamining Guida, Gobet, Tardieu, and Nicolas' (2012) two-stage framework , 2013, Front. Hum. Neurosci..

[18]  Jean-Paul Delahaye,et al.  Calculating Kolmogorov Complexity from the Output Frequency Distributions of Small Turing Machines , 2012, PloS one.

[19]  Ming Li,et al.  An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications , 2019, Texts in Computer Science.

[20]  F. Mathy,et al.  Retention-error patterns in complex alphanumeric serial-recall tasks , 2013, Memory.

[21]  Meta Bowman,et al.  About the Division , 2013 .

[22]  R. Engle,et al.  On the division of short-term and working memory: an examination of simple and complex span and their relation to higher order abilities. , 2007, Psychological bulletin.

[23]  F. Mathy,et al.  What’s magic about magic numbers? Chunking and data compression in short-term memory , 2012, Cognition.

[24]  Michael F. Bunting,et al.  Working memory span tasks: A methodological review and user’s guide , 2005, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[25]  N. Cowan.  The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity , 2001, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[26]  G. A. Miller.  THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW THE MAGICAL NUMBER SEVEN, PLUS OR MINUS TWO: SOME LIMITS ON OUR CAPACITY FOR PROCESSING INFORMATION 1 , 1956 .

[27]  J. Duncan,et al.  Encoding Strategies Dissociate Prefrontal Activity from Working Memory Demand , 2003, Neuron.