Title
The real relationship between short-term memory and working memory
Date Issued
01 October 2006
Access level
metadata only access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Colom R.
Shih P.
Quiroga M.
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
Abstract
Storage-oriented memory span tasks with no explicit concurrent processing are usually referred as short-term memory (STM) tasks, whereas tasks involving storage plus concurrent processing requirements are designated as working memory (WM) tasks. The present study explores a question that remains unsolved: Do STM and WM tasks clearly tap distinguishable theoretical constructs? For that purpose, a large sample of 403 participants was tested through 12 diverse memory span tasks. Half of those tasks are widely accepted as measures of STM, whereas the other half measure WM. The results show that STM and WM share largely overlapping underlying capacity limitations, suggesting that all memory span tasks tap essentially the same construct. Some implications are discussed.
Start page
804
End page
813
Volume
14
Issue
7
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Ciencias médicas, Ciencias de la salud Psicología
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-33748117068
PubMed ID
Source
Memory
ISSN of the container
14640686
Sponsor(s)
Address correspondence to: Roberto Colom, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain. E-mail: roberto.colom@uam.es The research referred to in this article was supported by a grant funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologia (Grant No. BSO2002-01455.)
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus