Measuring Working Memory Is All Fun and Games

Abstract

We developed a novel four-dimensional spatial task called Shapebuilder and used it to predict performance on a wide variety of cognitive tasks. In six experiments, we illustrate that Shapebuilder: (1) Loads on a common factor with complex working memory (WM) span tasks and that it predicts performance on quantitative reasoning tasks and Ravens Progressive Matrices (Experiment 1), (2) Correlates well with traditional complex WM span tasks (Experiment 2), predicts performance on the conditional go/no go task (Experiment 3) and N-back (Experiment 4), and showed weak or nonsignificant correlations with the Attention Networks Task (Experiment 5), and task switching (Experiment 6). Shapebuilder shows that it exhibits minimal skew and kurtosis, and shows good reliability. We argue that Shapebuilder has many advantages over existing measures of WM, including the fact that it is largely language independent, is not prone to ceiling effects, and take less than 6 min to complete on average.

Gamification of Cognitive Assessment and Cognitive Training: A Systematic Review of Applications and Efficacy

“…Most gamified assessments were validated successfully. Wii Tests [ 21 ], Shapebuilder [ 37 ], The Great Brain Experiment [ 32 , 39 ], BAM-COG [ 28 ], and Tap the Hedgehog [ 27 ] were all found to produce output measures/scores that correlated fairly well with their non–gamelike counterparts, though mixed-domain measures were an issue (see Supplementary Table 1 in Multimedia Appendix 2 for full details of all games). Validation studies varied in their design, and some studies reported complex correlations between gamified and nongamified tasks with multiple outputs.…”

“…Validation studies varied in their design, and some studies reported complex correlations between gamified and nongamified tasks with multiple outputs. However, sample correlations from some of the simpler validation studies suggest intertask correlations of 0.45-0.60 [ 28 , 37 , 39 , 63 ]. Broadly speaking, these were well-designed and well-powered studies, and together, they provide encouraging evidence that cognitive tests can be gamified and still be useful as a research tool.…”

Effects of Working Memory Capacity and Tasks in Processing L2 Complex Sentence: Evidence from Chinese-English Bilinguals

“…It can eliminate the potential influences of verbal proficiency by requiring the participants to recollect unrelated letters rather than sentence-final words. Compared to extensive involvement of the experimenter in the reading span task, the OSPAN is less prone to human error and variation in performance due to differential instructions as well (Atkins et al, 2014). Zhou et al (2016) adopted both the L2 reading span task and the OSPAN task to explore whether WMC affects the processing of subject- and object-extraction by Chinese learners of English.…”

Stronger Together: Personality, Intelligence and the Assessment of Career Potential

“…Similarly, there is increasing evidence that intelligence is accurately measured via games, or game-based assessments [84,85,86,87]. By applying machine learning algorithms to large numbers of data points collected during game play, such assessments achieve accuracy with shorter assessment time, making them particularly suitable to deliver comprehensive assessments of several characteristics such as personality and intelligence.…”