A working memory test battery for MATLAB

Lewandowsky, Stephan; Oberauer, Klaus; Yang, Lee-Xieng; Ecker, Ullrich K. H.

doi:10.3758/brm.42.2.571

Cited by 155 publications

(203 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Instead, we present in Fig. 12 data from our own laboratory that were obtained with a computerized test battery for working memory (Lewandowsky, Oberauer, Yang, & Ecker, 2010b), which includes reading span and operation span. Our span tasks are well suited for comparison with the predictions of TBRS* because they use fixed, computer-controlled times for each processing burst (though not for individual operations within a burst), and they force participants to enter items in forward order.…”

Section: Serial Position Curvesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Modeling working memory: a computational implementation of the Time-Based Resource-Sharing theory

2010

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Working memory is a core concept in cognition, predicting about 50% of the variance in IQ and reasoning tasks. A popular test of working memory is the complex span task, in which encoding of memoranda alternates with processing of distractors. A recent model of complex span performance, the Time-Based-Resource-Sharing (TBRS) model of Barrouillet and colleagues, has seemingly accounted for several crucial findings, in particular the intricate trade-off between deterioration and restoration of memory in the complex span task. According to the TBRS, memory traces decay during processing of the distractors, and they are restored by attentional refreshing during brief pauses in between processing steps. However, to date, the theory has been formulated only at a verbal level, which renders it difficult to test and to be certain of its intuited predictions. We present a computational instantiation of the TBRS and show that it can handle most of the findings on which the verbal model was based. We also show that there are potential challenges to the model that await future resolution. This instantiated model, TBRS*, is the first comprehensive computational model of performance in the complex span paradigm. The Matlab model code is available as a supplementary material of this article.

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Section: Serial Position Curvesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The top panel of Fig. 12 shows data for reading span and the bottom panel for operation span; both are taken from Experiment 2 in Lewandowsky et al (2010b). Comparison of the data (for list length 7) with the predicted form of the serial position curve (Fig.…”

Section: Serial Position Curvesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling working memory: a computational implementation of the Time-Based Resource-Sharing theory

2010

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“…For this purpose, the patterns reconstructed by the participants were matched against the original pattern. In each trial, participants could receive 1 point for any dot that deviated only one cell in any direction from the original, and 2 points for a perfect match (for more details on this scoring procedure, see Lewandowsky, et al, 2010). Progressive Matrices (Raven, 1990), participants had to complete a pattern by choosing one of eight alternatives.…”

Section: Cognitive Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To measure figural-spatial working memory capacity, we used the Spatial Short-Term Memory task described in Lewandowsky, Oberauer, Yang, and Ecker (2010).…”

Section: Cognitive Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

No evidence for bilingual cognitive advantages: A test of four hypotheses.

Bastian

Souza

Gade

2016

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

204

194

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The question whether being bilingual yields cognitive benefits is highly controversial with prior studies providing inconsistent results. Failures to replicate the bilingual advantage have been attributed to methodological factors such as comparing dichotomous groups and measuring cognitive abilities separately with single tasks. Therefore, we evaluated the four most prominent hypotheses of bilingual advantages for inhibitory control, conflict monitoring, shifting, and general cognitive performance by assessing bilingualism on three continuous dimensions (age of acquisition, proficiency, and usage) in a sample of 118 young adults, and relating it to nine cognitive abilities each measured by multiple tasks. Linear mixed-effects models accounting for multiple sources of variance simultaneously and controlling for parents' education as an index of socio-economic status revealed no evidence for any of the four hypotheses. Hence, our results suggest that bilingual benefits are not as broad and as robust as has been previously claimed.Instead, earlier effects were possibly due to task-specific effects in selective and often small samples.

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“…The young-updating sample practiced four memory updating tasks (adapted from Lewandowsky et al 2010). In these tasks, participants had to memorize a set of stimuli presented simultaneously for 500 ms per item.…”

Section: Studies and Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Individual Differences Predict Change in Cognitive Training Performance? A Latent Growth Curve Modeling Approach

2017

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Cognitive training interventions have become increasingly popular as a potential means to cost-efficiently stabilize or enhance cognitive functioning across the lifespan. Large training improvements have been consistently reported on the group level, with, however, large differences on the individual level. Identifying the factors contributing to these individual differences could allow for developing individually tailored interventions to boost training gains. In this study, we therefore examined a range of individual differences variables that had been discussed in the literature to potentially predict training performance. To estimate and predict individual differences in the training trajectories, we applied Latent Growth Curve models to existing data from three working memory training interventions with younger and older adults. However, we found that individual differences in demographic variables, real-world cognition, motivation, cognitionrelated beliefs, personality, leisure activities, and computer literacy and training experience were largely unrelated to change in training performance. Solely baseline cognitive performance was substantially related to change in training performance and particularly so in young adults, with individuals with higher baseline performance showing the largest gains. Thus, our results conform to magnification accounts of cognitive change.Keywords Working memory training . Individual differences . Latent growth curve modeling Over the past decade, there has been an exploding interest in computer-based commercial Bbrain training^programs and in scientific evidence relating to the effectiveness of such interventions, triggered by promising results of working memory (WM) training gains generalizing to previously untrained cognitive abilities such as intelligence in both younger (e.g., Jaeggi et al. 2008) and older adults (e.g., Borella et al. 2010). Although the idea of improving general cognitive functioning within a few weeks is enticing, there is also accumulating evidence against a generalized effect of WM training (e.g., Clark et al. 2017;De Simoni and von Bastian 2017;Guye and von Bastian 2017;Sprenger et al. 2013). Even on the meta-analytic level, evidence is mixed regarding the effectiveness of cognitive training in both younger and older adults (e.g., Au et al. 2015;Dougherty et al. 2016;Karbach and Verhaeghen 2014;Kelly et al. 2014;Lampit et al. 2014;Melby-Lervåg and Hulme 2013;Melby-Lervåg et al. 2016;Schwaighofer et al. 2015;Soveri et al. 2017). Aside from design and methodological choices potentially explaining the diverging findings (e.g., Noack et al. 2009;Shipstead et al. 2012), many authors increasingly articulated the potentially important influence of individual differences on cognitive training trajectories and outcomes (e.g., Buitenweg et al. 2012;Guye et al. 2016;Könen and Karbach 2015;Shah et al. 2012;von Bastian and Oberauer 2014 Individual differences in cognitive functioning (e.g., Ackerman and Lohman 2006) and learning potential (e.g., Stern ...

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A working memory test battery for MATLAB

Cited by 155 publications

References 34 publications

Modeling working memory: a computational implementation of the Time-Based Resource-Sharing theory

Modeling working memory: a computational implementation of the Time-Based Resource-Sharing theory

No evidence for bilingual cognitive advantages: A test of four hypotheses.

Do Individual Differences Predict Change in Cognitive Training Performance? A Latent Growth Curve Modeling Approach

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