Connecting the Dots between N-back, Operation Span, and Raven's Progressive Matrices

Though labeled as measures of working memory capacity, N-back tasks and Operation Span (OSPAN) correlate inadequately to use them interchangeably. Further, both tasks appear to have unique relationships with Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (RAPM), a measure of fluid intelligence, but the nature of these relationships have been inadequately characterized (e.g., Kane et al., 2007). In an effort to address this gap in the literature, participants in the present study completed the aforementioned three tasks as well as inspection time (a measure of perceptual speed; Fox et al., 2009) along with two measures of attentional control, the Stroop task (e.g., Spieler, Balota, & Faust, 1996) and the antisaccade task (e.g., Kane et al., 2001). Analyses revealed that perceptual speed and the antisaccade task were important to explaining the relationship between N-back and RAPM whereas the Stroop interference effect corresponded to the link between OSPAN and RAPM. These results suggest that perceptual speed helps explain why N-back relates uniquely to RAPM relative to OSPAN with attentional control measures further differentiating these two commonly used working memory tasks.

Grantor dc:publisher

Wake Forest University

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Prasad, Joshua

• Inspection Time

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/39386

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/39386