A comparison of laboratory and clinical working memory tests and their prediction of fluid intelligence

Abstract

The working memory (WM) construct is conceptualized similarly across domains of psychology, yet the methods used to measure WM function vary widely. The present study examined the relationship between WM measures used in the laboratory and those used in applied settings. A large sample of undergraduates completed three laboratory-based WM measures (operation span, listening span, and n-back), as well as the WM subtests from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III and the Wechsler Memory Scale-III. Performance on all of the WM subtests of the clinical batteries shared positive correlations with the lab measures; however, the Arithmetic and Spatial Span subtests shared lower correlations than the other WM tests. Factor analyses revealed that a factor comprising scores from the three lab WM measures and the clinical subtest, Letter-Number Sequencing (LNS), provided the best measurement of WM. Additionally, a latent variable approach was taken using fluid intelligence as a criterion construct to further discriminate between the WM tests. The results revealed that the lab measures, along with the LNS task, were the best predictors of fluid abilities.

Impaired ability to imagine future pleasant events is associated with apathy in schizophrenia

“…Letter-number sequencing subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale -III (WAIS-III; Wechsler, 1997) The Letter-Number Sequencing (LNS) subtest is a measure of verbal working memory and constitutes a good predictor of fluid intelligence (Shelton et al, 2009). We decided to control for working memory, in view of its role in future projection (Heerey et al, 2011) and its association with apathy in schizophrenia (Faerden et al, 2009).…”

The contributions of handedness and working memory to episodic memory

“…We considered two WM tasks-digit span of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV; Wechsler, 2008), a measure for immediate memory span, to represent simple WM, because it possesses only the storage component (Shelton, Elliott, Hill, Calamia, & Gouvier, 2009) that requires maintaining information over a short period (Unsworth, & Engle, 2007). A note about the digit-span task-it consists of two components, forward and backward spans.…”

“…It has therefore been suggested that the backward condition is dependent on the phonological loop and the central executive, which is reflected in the form of greater activation of additional prefrontal and frontal areas bilaterally (Li, Qin, Zhang, Jiang, & Yu, 2012). Despite these evidences, several studies show that both spans significantly account for the storage component (Bowden, Petrauskas, Bardenhagen, Meade, & Simpson, 2013;Shelton et al, 2009;Wilde, Strauss, & Tulsky, 2004). In the current study, the two components were analyzed separately to check for handedness differences, if any.…”

Tarefa N-back auditiva: desempenho entre diferentes grupos etários

“…Por outro lado, Shelton e colaboradores (2009) afirmam que as características da tarefa N-back são potencialmente boas como medida de MT e encontraram em seu estudo uma convergência entre a tarefa N-back e outros instrumentos utilizados no contexto clínico, como a tarefa Sequência de Números e Letras, Aritmética e Span de dígitos (Shelton et al, 2009). Miller e colaboradores (2009), apesar de não concordarem com o uso da tarefa N-back no contexto clínico, comentam que ela foi a úni-ca das atividades de seu experimento capaz de identificar diferenças cognitivas entre idosos com doença de parkin-son e indivíduos controles.…”