Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity and Dual-Process Theories of the Mind.
DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.130.4.553
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Summary
This theoretical review examines the role of individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) within dual-process theories of the mind. The authors argue that WMC is primarily a measure of the ability to control attention, specifically the capacity to maintain focus on goal-relevant information while suppressing interference from automatic, stimulus-driven processes. By integrating concepts from cognitive, social, personality, and clinical psychology, the paper posits that variations in this attentional control mechanism significantly influence how individuals navigate the interplay between automatic and controlled processing. The authors define WMC not as a fixed storage buffer, but as a domain-free ability to manage attentional resources. They critique older resource-sharing and domain-specific models, citing psychometric evidence that WMC scores correlate consistently across diverse complex span tasks (e.g., verbal, spatial, arithmetic) regardless of the specific computational demands. Instead, they align WMC with the "central executive" component of working memory, the supervisory attention system, and executive control. The review synthesizes existing literature on complex span tasks, which require simultaneous storage and processing, to demonstrate that performance reflects the efficiency of attentional control rather than mere memory capacity or processing speed. Key findings indicate that high WMC facilitates effective controlled processing in situations involving conflict, novelty, or distraction. Individuals with higher WMC are better able to activate goal-relevant representations, maintain them against decay, and suppress irrelevant or automatic responses. The paper highlights that controlled attention is distinct from conscious awareness; it can operate at early perceptual stages without subjective experience. Furthermore, the authors link WMC to neural systems, particularly the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and thalamic gating mechanisms, which modulate activation levels in neural circuits to resolve competing demands. The review notes that WMC correlates with a wide range of cognitive outcomes, including resistance to proactive interference and efficient retrieval of goal-relevant information. The significance of this work lies in its proposal to integrate WMC as a central variable in dual-process theories. The authors suggest that individual differences in attentional control explain variability in social behaviors, such as stereotyping, persuasion, and self-regulation, which are often attributed solely to automatic processes. By framing WMC as a pivotal factor in negotiating automatic and controlled processing, the paper outlines a new research agenda. It implies that understanding WMC can clarify why certain individuals are more susceptible to automatic biases or better equipped for complex cognitive tasks, thereby unifying disparate findings across psychological subfields under a common mechanistic framework.
Key finding
Individual differences in working memory capacity are best understood as variations in the ability to control attention, which serves as a critical determinant of how effectively individuals manage the interplay between automatic and controlled processing.
Methodology
review
Provenance
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-07 |
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| enrich | success | openalex | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-08 |
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| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
Topics
Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.
- cognitive capacity variation
- capacity resource theory
- executive function
- dual task multitasking
- working memory
- individual differences
Information type
What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).
- Theoretical Contribution: theory or model