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Related Experiment Videos

Competition for working memory among writing processes.

R T Kellogg1

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Missouri-Rolla, Rolla, MO 65409-1270, USA. kellogg@umr.edu

The American Journal of Psychology
|June 30, 2001
PubMed
Summary
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Writing processes like planning, translating, and reviewing compete for limited working memory resources. Practice with tasks such as narrative writing or longhand composition influences how this spare capacity is allocated.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Writing Studies
  • Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

  • Writing involves complex cognitive processes including idea planning, sentence translation, and text review.
  • The cognitive demands of writing can be influenced by the medium (longhand vs. word processor) and text type (narrative, descriptive, persuasive).
  • Understanding the allocation of cognitive resources during writing is crucial for improving writing instruction and technology design.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how different writing processes (planning, translating, reviewing) utilize working memory resources.
  • To examine the impact of writing modality (longhand vs. word processor) and text type on resource allocation.
  • To determine if highly practiced processes free up cognitive capacity for other writing-related tasks.

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Main Methods:

  • College students composed narrative, descriptive, and persuasive texts using either longhand or a word processor.
  • Participants responded to auditory probes, indicating their concurrent cognitive process (planning, translating, or reviewing) at the moment of the probe.
  • Probe reaction times were analyzed to infer the distribution of cognitive resources across different writing processes.

Main Results:

  • When cognitive demands were lower (e.g., narrative planning), spare working memory capacity was distributed evenly among planning, translating, and reviewing.
  • When motor execution demands were lower (e.g., longhand writing), the reviewing process benefited more from spare capacity than the planning process.
  • Writing processes, including idea planning, sentence translation, and text review, compete for a shared pool of general working memory resources.

Conclusions:

  • Writing processes are not independent but compete for a common, general-purpose working memory resource.
  • Task-specific practice (e.g., narrative planning, longhand motor execution) can influence the distribution of cognitive resources during writing.
  • These findings have implications for understanding cognitive load in writing and designing effective writing tools and environments.