Working memory capacity and the scope and control of attention

Abstract

Complex span and visual arrays are two common measures of working memory capacity that are respectively treated as measures of attention control and storage capacity. A recent analysis of these tasks concluded that (1) complex span performance has a relatively stronger relationship to fluid intelligence and (2) this is due to the requirement that people engage control processes while performing this task. The present study examines the validity of these conclusions by examining two large data sets that include a more diverse set of visual arrays tasks and several measures of attention control. We conclude that complex span and visual arrays account for similar amounts of variance in fluid intelligence. The disparity relative to the earlier analysis is attributed to the present study involving a more complete measure of the latent ability underlying the performance of visual arrays. Moreover, we find that both types of working memory task have strong relationships to attention control. This indicates that the ability to engage attention in a controlled manner is a critical aspect of working memory capacity, regardless of the type of task that is used to measure this construct.

The relationship between sustained inattentional blindness and working memory capacity

“…One possibility, for example, is that the effect is driven largely by performance variability in middle-and older-aged adults. O'Shea and Fieo (2014) found that fluid intelligence, which is highly correlated with WMC (Shipstead, Harrison, & Engle, 2015), predicted IB in older adults. However, this study did not directly test the IB-WMC association and used a relatively small sample, so the results may be affected by a few extreme scores.…”

The domain-specific and domain-general relationships of visuospatial working memory to reasoning ability

“…Although this conclusion was predicted by Baddeley's (1986) classic model, it contrasts with perspectives that focus solely on domain-specific resources (e.g., Shah & Miyake, 1996;Süß, Oberauer, Wittmann, Wilhelm, & Schulze, 2002) or that assume that the properties of VSWM can be understood via either/or questions (e.g., slots OR resources; features OR objects; quality OR quantity; see Luck & Vogel, 2013). VSWM is multiply determined, and its properties are likely more complex than the unitary-resource proposals that are common in the literature (e.g., Luck & Vogel, 2013;Shah & Miyake, 1996;Shipstead et al, 2015).…”

“…That is, the factor labeled WM DG represents domain-general storage. Although we have no issue with interpreting WM DG as representing focal attention, we argue that focal attention largely arises from the ability to stabilize attention on relevant information (Shipstead et al, 2015).…”

“…Shipstead et al (2015) recently demonstrated that VSWM factors, as presently defined, have a strong relationship to attention control. This relationship exists above and beyond more traditional measures of working memory capacity (e.g., complex span).…”

“…These questions include whether VSWM is limited by a discrete number of slots or is a flexible resource (Awh, Barton, & Vogel, 2007;Bays & Husain, 2008), whether VSWM stores features or integrated objects (Luck & Vogel, 1997;Wheeler & Treisman, 2002), and whether the fidelity or quantity of representations is more important to complex cognition (Fukuda et al, 2010). Recently, researchers have also begun to question whether individual differences in VSWM require an assumption of individual differences in storage capacity, or might be accounted for via attentional stability (Adam, Mance, Fukuda, & Vogel, 2015;Fukuda, Woodman, & Vogel, 2015;Shipstead, Harrison, & Engle, 2015).…”