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Updated: Jun 1, 2026

Assessing Working Memory in Children: The Comprehensive Assessment Battery for Children – Working Memory (CABC-WM)
Published on: June 12, 2017
On perfect working-memory performance with large numbers of items
Jonathan E Thiele1, Michael S Pratte, Jeffrey N Rouder
1Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, 210 McAlester Hall, Columbia, MO 65211, USA.
Working memory likely has limited capacity, contrary to previous findings. A study flaw in prior research allowed participants to guess answers, masking true memory limitations.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Limited-capacity models of working memory (WM) are prevalent.
- Previous research suggested WM might hold numerous simple items without capacity limits.
Purpose of the Study:
- To re-evaluate claims of unlimited working memory capacity.
- To identify and correct a design flaw in a prior study (Bays & Husain, 2009).
Main Methods:
- Participants completed a working memory task with eight simple items.
- The task was administered in two conditions: one with a design flaw, and one corrected.
Main Results:
- Perfect performance was observed when the design flaw was present.
- Performance significantly decreased when the flaw was corrected, indicating limited working memory capacity.
Conclusions:
- The prior finding of perfect performance was likely an artifact of the experimental design.
- The results support, rather than refute, models of working memory with limited capacity.
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