Bridge Over Troubled Water: Commenting on Kovacs and Conway's Process Overlap Theory

Colom, Roberto; Chuderski, Adam; Santarnecchi, Emiliano

doi:10.1080/1047840x.2016.1181513

Cited by 20 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 288 publications

(299 reference statements)

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“…They argued that individual differences in gF, therefore, can be largely accounted for by generic short-term storage processes, such as encoding, maintenance, and retrieval. Indeed, WM and intelligence share common capacity limitations because reasoning tasks use WM as a workspace (e.g., a certain number of items or relationships between items may need to be kept active during the reasoning process to come to a solution; Colom et al, 2008;Colom, Chuderski, & Santarnecchi, 2016;Halford, Cowan, & Andrews, 2007).…”

Section: Removal Wmc and Fluid Intelligencementioning

confidence: 99%

Working memory capacity mediates the relationship between removal and fluid intelligence

Singh

Gignac

Brydges

et al. 2018

Journal of Memory and Language

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A process of active, item-wise removal of information from working memory (WM) has been proposed as the core component process of WM updating. Consequently, we investigated the associations between removal efficiency, WM capacity, and fluid intelligence (gF) in a series of three individual-differences studies via confirmatory factor analysis. In each study, participants completed a novel WM updating task battery designed to measure removal efficiency. In Study 1, participants additionally completed a WM capacity task battery. In Study 2, participants completed a battery of well-established measures of gF in addition to the updating battery. In Study 3, participants completed the updating, WM capacity, and gF task batteries. The results suggested that removal efficiency was related to both WM capacity and gF. Furthermore, based on a mediation analysis, the relationship between removal efficiency and gF was found to be entirely indirect via removal's influence on WM capacity. The results were interpreted to suggest that removal ability may contribute to performance in reasoning tasks effectively through increasing WM capacity, presumably through reducing interference from distracting information.

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Section: Removal Wmc and Fluid Intelligencementioning

confidence: 99%

Working memory capacity mediates the relationship between removal and fluid intelligence

Singh

Gignac

Brydges

et al. 2018

Journal of Memory and Language

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“…Virtual short-term memory was not considered active, but was said to be stored in a way that allows it to be retrieved easier than most other parts of long-term memory. Something like this generic definition would presumably be appealing to researchers (e.g., Colom, Chuderski, & Santarnecchi, 2016) with a psychometric, individualdifferences approach who find that the important aspects of WM are highly correlated across storage and processing and account well for general intelligence, even in tasks that emphasize the storage component without additional processing, so long as that storage function is adequately measured. Although a generic definition might not be offensive to anyone, it is common for the term WM to be imbued with additional meaning when discussed by researchers who see a special place for processing and executive function in individual differences in WM.…”

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confidence: 99%

The many faces of working memory and short-term storage

2016

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The topic of working memory (WM) is ubiquitous in research on cognitive psychology and on individual differences. According to one definition, it is a small amount of information kept in a temporary state of heightened accessibility; it is used in most types of communication and problem solving. Short-term storage has been defined as the passive (i.e., non-attention-based, nonstrategic) component of WM or, alternatively, as a passive store separate from an attentionbased WM. Here I note that much confusion has been created by the use by various investigators of many, subtly different definitions of WM and short-term storage. The definitions are sometimes made explicit and sometimes implied. As I explain, the different definitions may have stemmed from the use of a wide variety of techniques to explore WM, along with differences in theoretical orientation. By delineating nine previously used definitions of WM and explaining how additional ones may emerge from combinations of these nine, I hope to improve scientific discourse on WM. The potential advantages of clarity about definitions of WM and short-term storage are illustrated with respect to several ongoing research controversies.Keywords Short term memory . Working memory During the past 40+ years, I have watched as working memory (WM) has become one of the most talked-about and written-about terms in the field of cognitive psychology. During that time I have noticed that many of the controversies that occur in the field are related to definitions of WM. Several times within the last decade, after having devoted much of my career to exploring WM, I have even been asked to write review papers largely to clarify what the meaning of the term WM is, and how it is different from other terms in the literature (Cowan, 2008(Cowan, , 2010. The alternative terms with which it can sometimes be confused include primary memory (James, 1890;Waugh & Norman, 1965), immediate memory (e.g., Miller, 1956), short-term storage (e.g., Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968) or short-term memory, and prospective memory (Einstein & McDaniel, 2005).It has become clearer to me that a major source of confusion is that researchers use different definitions of the malleable and useful concept of WM. We do not seem to be converging on a common definition of the term. Others also have noted this absence of clarity about definitions; see for example Postle (2015). The main purpose of this article is to delineate definitions that have been used. This could lead to better scientific discourse if researchers could qualify their statements in a convenient manner by indicating which of the following definitions, if any, they mean by WM. I will elaborate on different definitions of WM and short-term storage and say a bit about how the definitions may affect scientific debate. On scientific definitions and WMMy sensitivity to definitions was enhanced after a conference on WM in which each participating researcher was asked to define WM, with the definitions recorded within a volume of proceedings (Miy...

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“…After discussing several lines of evidence, he arrived at the conclusion that: “ brain networks might best be characterized in terms of the information they process rather than in terms of abstract psychological processes such as working memory and executive control ”. Models of human cognitive abilities use latent constructs showing substantial conceptual overlap [19,56], and, therefore, these models might be best characterized by their contents rather than their processes, resulting in the classification of cognitive abilities according to a hierarchy of content.…”

Section: Cognition and Brain Network: Summary Discussion And Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhancing Intelligence: From the Group to the Individual

Colom

Román

2018

J. Intell.

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Abstract:Research aimed at testing whether short-term training programs can enhance intelligence is mainly concentrated on behavior. Expected positive effects are found sometimes, but the evidence is far from conclusive. It is assumed that training must evoke changes in the brain for observing genuine improvements in behavior. However, behavioral and brain data are seldom combined in the same study. Here we present one example of this latter type of research summarizing, discussing, and integrating already published results. The training program was based on the adaptive dual n-back task, and participants completed a comprehensive battery measuring fluid and crystallized ability, along with working memory and attention control, before and after training. They were also submitted to MRI scanning at baseline and post-training. Behavioral results revealed positive effects for visuospatial processing across cognitive domains. Brain imaging data were analyzed by longitudinal voxel-based morphometry, tensor-based morphometry, surface-based morphometry, and structural connectivity. The integration of these multimodal brain results provides clues about those observed in behavior. Our findings, along with previous research and current technological advances, are considered from the perspective that we now live in ideal times for (a) moving from the group to the individual and (b) developing personalized training programs.

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Bridge Over Troubled Water: Commenting on Kovacs and Conway's Process Overlap Theory

Cited by 20 publications

References 288 publications

Working memory capacity mediates the relationship between removal and fluid intelligence

Working memory capacity mediates the relationship between removal and fluid intelligence

The many faces of working memory and short-term storage

Enhancing Intelligence: From the Group to the Individual

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