Mental counters as an online tool for assessing working memory capacity

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Working memory capacity (WMC) is crucial for cognitive functions and predicting psychological outcomes.
• Traditional WMC assessments face limitations in sample diversity and accessibility.
• The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for reliable remote cognitive assessments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a new online version of the Mental Counters task.
• To provide a brief (10-minute) and accessible measure of WMC.
• To assess the reliability and convergent validity of the online task.

Main Methods:

• Development of an online Mental Counters task.
• Data collection from a diverse sample via remote assessment.
• Statistical analysis of reliability (e.g., internal consistency) and convergent validity.

Main Results:

• The online Mental Counters task showed good reliability.
• The task demonstrated convergent validity with established WMC measures like Picture Span and Paper Folding.
• The online format facilitates broader and more diverse data collection.

Conclusions:

• The online Mental Counters task is a reliable and valid tool for assessing WMC.
• This digital approach overcomes limitations of traditional in-person assessments.
• The task is suitable for remote, large-scale data collection in cognitive research.