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Updated: May 9, 2026
09:05
Assessing Working Memory in Children: The Comprehensive Assessment Battery for Children – Working Memory (CABC-WM)
Published on: June 12, 2017
Visual working memory capacity: from psychophysics and neurobiology to individual differences
Steven J Luck1, Edward K Vogel
1Center for Mind and Brain and Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, 267 Cousteau Place, Davis, CA 95618, USA. sjluck@ucdavis.edu
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
|July 16, 2013
Summary
Visual working memory capacity, crucial for cognitive ability, is likely limited by discrete items, not a divisible resource. Individual differences arise from both storage limits and efficient usage.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Psychology
Background:
- Visual working memory (VWM) capacity is a key cognitive function.
- It correlates with general cognitive ability and is measurable.
- VWM influences diverse tasks, from motor control to reasoning.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the nature of VWM capacity limitations.
- To explore the sources of individual differences in VWM capacity.
Main Methods:
- Review of recent empirical evidence.
- Analysis of neural network models.
Main Results:
- Evidence favors a discrete item limit for VWM capacity over an infinitely divisible resource.
- Individual differences in VWM capacity stem from both storage limitations and efficient utilization.
Conclusions:
- VWM capacity is best characterized as a discrete item limit.
- Understanding individual differences requires considering both storage quantity and usage efficiency.
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