Individual differences in working memory and comprehension: A test of four hypotheses.

Engle, Randall W; Cantor, Judy; Carullo, Julie J. · 1992 · OpenAlex

DOI: 10.1037//0278-7393.18.5.972

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Summary

This paper investigates the underlying mechanisms linking individual differences in working memory capacity to reading comprehension. While a consistent correlation exists between working memory measures and comprehension, the authors test four competing hypotheses to explain this relationship: the general processing hypothesis (processing efficiency drives capacity), the task-specific hypothesis (capacity is specific to the domain, e.g., reading), the strategic allocation hypothesis (high-span individuals strategically trade off processing time for storage), and the general capacity hypothesis (a fixed, domain-independent resource limit determines both span and comprehension). To distinguish among these theories, the authors conducted three experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 utilized a moving-window procedure to present operation-word and reading-span tasks, respectively. This method allowed for the precise measurement of viewing times (VTs) for both the processing components (solving arithmetic operations or reading sentences) and the to-be-remembered words. By analyzing VTs, the researchers could determine if high- and low-span subjects differed in processing speed or if they strategically allocated time between processing and storage. Experiment 3 compared the predictive validity of a traditional experimenter-paced simple word-span task against a subject-paced span task in relation to comprehension scores. The results provided strong support for the general capacity hypothesis while refuting the other three. In Experiments 1 and 2, high- and low-span subjects did not differentially trade off time between processing elements and the to-be-remembered words, contradicting the strategic allocation hypothesis. Furthermore, the correlation between span scores and comprehension remained significant even when viewing times were statistically partialled out, indicating that processing speed or efficiency did not mediate the relationship. This finding also undermined the general and task-specific processing hypotheses, which posited that processing efficiency accounts for the variance in comprehension. In Experiment 3, the experimenter-paced simple word-span correlated with comprehension, whereas the subject-paced span did not, further suggesting that the relationship is driven by a stable capacity limit rather than strategic control or task-specific skills. The study concludes that individual differences in working memory reflect a general, limited capacity for simultaneous processing and storage, independent of the specific nature of the processing task. This supports the view that working memory capacity is a stable characteristic that constrains higher-level cognitive tasks like reading comprehension. The findings imply that interventions or theories focusing solely on improving processing efficiency or strategic allocation may not fully account for individual differences in comprehension, as the primary limiting factor is the total available mental resources.

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• working memory