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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Apr 29, 2026

Assessing Working Memory in Children: The Comprehensive Assessment Battery for Children – Working Memory (CABC-WM)

Assessing Working Memory in Children: The Comprehensive Assessment Battery for Children – Working Memory (CABC-WM)

Published on: June 12, 2017

Assessing working memory capacity through time-constrained elementary activities.

Annalisa Lucidi¹, Vanessa Loaiza, Valérie Camos

¹a Université de Genève.

The Journal of General Psychology

|May 22, 2014

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

New working memory (WM) tasks using elementary activities predict fluid intelligence (Gf) as well as traditional complex span tasks. This expands WM assessment to broader populations.

Keywords:

fluid intelligence individual differences working memory

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience
Psychometrics

Background:

Working memory (WM) capacity is a strong predictor of fluid intelligence (Gf).
Traditional complex span tasks, while effective, require high education levels, limiting their use in diverse populations.
Individual differences in complex tasks stem from elementary cognitive processes.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if WM tasks using time-constrained elementary activities can predict Gf as effectively as traditional complex span tasks.
To determine if WM capacity is best represented by a single unitary factor or distinct factors when incorporating elementary activities.
To broaden the applicability of WM assessment across different populations.

Main Methods:

Developed and administered novel span tasks involving time-constrained elementary activities.
Utilized traditional complex span tasks (e.g., reading, arithmetic) for comparison.
Employed structural equation modeling to compare predictive validity and factor structures.

Main Results:

Latent variables from both traditional and new span tasks showed similar correlations with Gf.
A single unitary WM factor model provided a comparable fit to a two-factor model.
WM tasks incorporating elementary activities demonstrated strong predictive power for Gf.

Conclusions:

Time-constrained elementary activities can be effectively integrated into WM tasks.
These new WM tasks offer a viable alternative for assessing WM capacity in wider populations.
The findings support the utility of elementary cognitive processes in understanding individual differences in intelligence.