A Standard Computerized Version of the Reading Span Test in Different Languages

Abstract

The Reading Span Test (RST) is a verbal working-memory test. The original RST ( Daneman & Carpenter, 1980 ), and derivatives of it, are being used increasingly as assessments of central executive functioning and for research on aging-associated cognitive decline ( Whitney, Arnett, Driver, & Budd, 2001 ). Several versions have been made in order to further improve the test or to develop a version in a different language. However, all versions changed different things, making direct comparisons of the results with the RST between different research groups and across different languages impossible. This paper presents the results of testing a new standard computerized version of the RST in four languages (Dutch, English, German, and Norwegian). The new RST meets strict methodological criteria that are the same for all four language versions. A plausibility test, an abstract-concrete rating scale, and a pilot-study were conducted on native speakers to test the new RST. In addition, the internal and external reliability and the ecological validity of the new RST were tested. The results showed that the new RST is a suitable test to investigate verbal working memory. Finally, an important advantage of the new RST is that the different language versions make cross-linguistic comparisons of RST results possible.

Reasoning with Exceptions: An Event-related Brain Potentials Study

“…However, the working memory account seems less likely because we failed to find any relationship between reading span and suppression, and between reading span and the ERP effect. Reading span is usually taken as a measure for verbal working memory capacity (Van den Noort et al, 2008). Although the current evidence does not support any associations between verbal working memory capacity and defeasible reasoning, some caution is required when excluding the working memory account.…”

“…We used a computerized Dutch version of the Reading Span Test to measure verbal working memory (for a detailed description, see Van den Noort, Bosch, Haverkort, & Hugdahl, 2008;Van den Noort, Bosch, & Hugdahl, 2006). Participants had to read aloud 100 sentences, which appeared on a computer screen.…”

How age affects memory task performance in clinically normal hearing persons

“…The WAIS-III Digit Span Test (Wechsler, 2000) and the Flemish version of the standard computerized version of the Reading Span Test (van den Noort et al, 2008) are administered in random order.…”

“…It focuses on both storage and manipulation (ReuterLorenz & Sylvester, 2005). In order to avoid fatigue during testing, we have abbreviated the computerized version by van den Noort et al (2008) by using 60 out of 100 sentences. They are divided over three sets (20 sentences per set).…”

Individual differences in cognitive control advantages of elderly late Dutch-English bilinguals

“…To provide more information about the administrative (including timing) procedures of the cognitive tasks, the standardized computerized Reading Span Tasks (L1 Dutch and L2 English) used in this study were short forms (60 rather than 100 sentences) of those developed by van den Noort, Bosch, Haverkort and Hugdahl (2008). All sentences were presented for a maximum duration of 6 seconds, unless the subject hit the space bar before.…”