On the interpretation of working memory span in adults
DOI: 10.3758/bf03198549
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
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Summary
This paper investigates whether adults perform working memory span tasks differently than children, specifically testing the validity of the "task-switching" model against the traditional "resource-sharing" framework. Previous research on children suggested that working memory span is determined primarily by time-based forgetting during processing intervals, rather than by a competition for limited cognitive resources between processing and storage. However, adult data had previously shown weak correlations between processing speed and span, leading some to argue that adults rely on resource-sharing strategies. The authors sought to determine if the task-switching model, which posits that processing and storage do not interfere but that retention duration dictates performance, also applies to adults. The study involved 30 adults who completed reading span and operation span tasks using materials identical to those used in prior studies with children. The experimental design manipulated the order of "cards" (processing items) to vary retention duration while keeping total cognitive work constant. In the "long final" condition, a time-consuming processing task occurred last, requiring participants to retain previous items for a longer period. In the "short final" condition, the short task occurred last, minimizing retention time. The authors measured span performance, processing speed, and error rates. They also administered independent tests of processing speed (digit and picture matching) to assess individual differences. The results demonstrated that adults’ working memory span was significantly impaired in the long final condition for both reading and operation span tasks, indicating that retention duration negatively impacts performance. Crucially, concurrent memory load did not affect processing speed; participants did not slow down when holding more items in memory. Furthermore, there were no significant correlations between processing speed (either on-line or via independent tests) and working memory span scores in adults. This contrasts with previous findings in children, where processing speed strongly predicted span performance. The lack of correlation between processing difficulty (measured by error rates) and span further supported the conclusion that resource competition was not the primary driver of performance. The findings support the task-switching model for adults, suggesting that working memory span reflects the degradation of memory representations over time rather than a tradeoff of shared resources. The authors reconcile the difference between adult and child data by proposing that while both groups are subject to time-based forgetting, children’s span is additionally constrained by their slower processing speeds, which naturally extend retention intervals. Adults, possessing faster processing speeds, decouple the direct link between speed and span, though they remain vulnerable to forgetting when retention intervals are experimentally extended. This challenges the ubiquity of the resource-sharing explanation for working memory and highlights the importance of temporal dynamics in cognitive architecture.
Key finding
Adult working memory span is impaired by increased retention duration but is not affected by concurrent memory load or correlated with processing speed, supporting a task-switching model over resource-sharing theories.
Methodology
lab_experiment
Sample size: 30
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via author_sweep_intake on 2026-05-28.
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | author_sweep | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-28 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| enrich | failed | — | — | — | 4 | 2026-07-02 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 15 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
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