The validity of “conceptual span” as a measure of working memory capacity

Kane, Michael J.; Miyake, T.

doi:10.3758/bf03193484

Cited by 10 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Moreover, as we opted for the use of mostly standardized and often used memory tasks, the involvement of control processes may differ across them. Specifically, whereas the contribution of control processes is likely to be minimal in the phonological storage task (forward digit span), the semantic storage task (conceptual span) might involve some updating of information (see also Kane & Miyake, 2007). Together, this warrants caution in the interpretation of the results.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How working memory relates to children’s reading comprehension: the importance of domain-specificity in storage and processing

Nouwens

Groen²,

Verhoeven³

2016

Read Writ

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Working memory is considered a well-established predictor of individual variation in reading comprehension in children and adults. However, how storage and processing capacities of working memory in both the phonological and semantic domain relate to reading comprehension is still unclear. In the current study, we investigated the contribution of phonological and semantic storage, and phonological and semantic processing to reading comprehension in 123 Dutch children in fifth grade. We conducted regression and mediation analyses to find out to what extent variation in reading comprehension could be explained by storage and processing capacities in both the phonological and the semantic domain, while controlling for children’s decoding and vocabulary. The analyses included tasks that reflect storage only, and working memory tasks that assess processing in addition to storage. Regression analysis including only storage tasks as predictor measures, revealed semantic storage to be a better predictor of reading comprehension than phonological storage. Adding phonological and semantic working memory tasks as additional predictors to the model showed that semantic working memory explained individual variation in reading comprehension over and above all other memory measures. Additional mediation analysis made it clear that semantic storage contributed indirectly to reading comprehension via semantic working memory, indicating that semantic storage tapped by working memory, in addition to processing capacities, explains individual variation in reading comprehension. It can thus be concluded that semantic storage plays a more important role in children’s reading comprehension than previously thought.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How working memory relates to children’s reading comprehension: the importance of domain-specificity in storage and processing

Nouwens

Groen²,

Verhoeven³

2016

Read Writ

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“…Notably, whereas the contribution of control processes is likely to be minimal in the phonological storage task (e.g., forward digit span task), the semantic storage task (e.g., conceptual span task) might involve some updating of information as in WM, and perhaps especially so for the Non-Clustered version of the task (see also [33]). For example, using a Non-Clustered version of the Conceptual Span task, Haarmann, Ashling, Davelaar, and Usher [15] found that semantic STM predicted successful performance on a widely-used measure of cognitive control: the AX-Continuous Performance Task [34].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Haarmann and his colleagues [3] also found that the Conceptual Span task (in the Non-Clustered version) predicted individual differences not only in language processing but also in fluid intelligence, showing an important contribution of semantic STM to higher-order cognitive processes. However, in another study [33], it was observed that when the to-be-remembered words were presented in a clustered fashion, the Conceptual Span task lost its ability to predict intelligence compared to an unclustered version, suggesting that the predictive capacity of the Conceptual Span task depends on the ability to reorganize the information (clustering ability, including WM). Nevertheless, in a later study [14] it was found that both versions of the Conceptual Span task strongly correlated with fluid intelligence, although the Non-Clustered version showed a somewhat higher correlation than the Clustered one ( r (72) = .67, and r (72) = .52, for the Non-Clustered and for the Clustered version, respectively, combining across older and younger adults; r (36) = .55, and r (36) = .22 for younger adults alone; r (36) = .61, and r (36) = .46 for older adults alone.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new index of semantic short-term memory: Development and validation of the conceptual span task in Spanish

Aizpurua

Koutstaal

2018

PLoS ONE

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Mounting evidence from both cognitive and neuropsychological research points to the importance of conceptual and lexical-semantic contributors to short-term memory performance. Nonetheless, a standardized and well-controlled measure to assess semantic short-term memory was only recently developed for English-speakers, and no parallel measure exists for Spanish-speakers. In the conceptual replication and extension reported here, we develop and validate a Spanish adaptation of the Conceptual Span task as a tool to measure the semantic component of short-term memory. Two versions of the task were validated, the Clustered and the Non-Clustered Conceptual Span task, both in separate samples of 64 and 105 Spanish-speaking university students. We found that both versions of the Conceptual Span task correlate well with another widely used standardized measure of working memory capacity, the Reading Span task. The two versions also correlated, as expected, with discrimination of linguistic congruency as assessed by a semantic anomaly judgment task. Clustered Conceptual Span remained a significant predictor of Reading Span when controlling for several additional cognitive variables, including fluid reasoning, text comprehension, verbal fluency, ideational fluency, and speed of processing. Our results present evidence that the Spanish adaptation of both versions of the Conceptual Span task can yield reliable estimates of the active maintenance of semantic representations in verbal working memory–an under-investigated ability that is involved in diverse domains such as episodic memory retrieval, language processing, and comprehension. Thus, the Conceptual Span task validated here can be employed to predict individual variation in semantic short-term memory capacity in a broad range of research domains.

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“…However, there was a time limit of 10 minutes. Kane & Miyake (2007) reported a reliability of alpha = .76 and a correlation of .59 with the Nelson-Denny comprehension test (no form given). 8…”

Section: New Text Comprehension Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…New text comprehension test 3: The final comprehension test was one used by Kane & Miyake (2007). It consisted of 20 short text fragments (40-114 words) ending with a question and five response alternatives.…”

Section: New Text Comprehension Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

Validated tests for language research with university students: Tests of vocabulary, general knowledge, author recognition, reading comprehension, reading frequency, attention check

Vermeiren

Vandendaele

Brysbaert³

2022

Preprint

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We present five studies aimed at developing a new vocabulary test for university students. Such a test isuseful as an indication of crystallized intelligence and because vocabulary size correlates well withreading comprehension. In the first study, a list of 100 words based on Nation’s Vocabulary Size Test waspresented to 195 participants and compared to other tests of crystallized intelligence. Analysis suggestedthe presence of two distinct factors, which we interpreted as evidence for the possible existence of twotypes of difficult words: Unfamiliar words for general knowledge and unfamiliar words for specializedknowledge. In the subsequent studies we tried to develop vocabulary tests for each type of words, at thesame time trying out various reading comprehension tests to use as validation criterion. However, in thefinal study a high correlation (r =.82) was found between our two vocabulary tests, indicating that theymeasure the same latent factor, contrary to our initial assumption. Both tests have high reliability (r >.85) and correlate well (r > .4) with general knowledge, author recognition, and reading comprehension.As part of our research efforts, a collection of new and existing tests was used and (often) improved toverify the validity of the vocabulary tests. An exploratory factor analysis on all tests established 3 factors(text comprehension, crystallized intelligence, and reading rate), with the vocabulary tests loading on thefactor of crystallized intelligence, which in turn correlated with reading comprehension. Structuralequation modeling corroborated the interpretation. We end by providing an overview of the differenttests that were developed or improved throughout the studies. They are freely available for researchpurposes at https://osf.io/ef3s4/.

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The validity of “conceptual span” as a measure of working memory capacity

Cited by 10 publications

References 38 publications

How working memory relates to children’s reading comprehension: the importance of domain-specificity in storage and processing

How working memory relates to children’s reading comprehension: the importance of domain-specificity in storage and processing

A new index of semantic short-term memory: Development and validation of the conceptual span task in Spanish

Validated tests for language research with university students: Tests of vocabulary, general knowledge, author recognition, reading comprehension, reading frequency, attention check

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