The Working Memory Capacity Depends on the Control of Attention

16:43, March 1, 2023

Scientists have determined: the better the concentration, the more information you can keep in your head

Working memory capacity depends on the ability to control attention, but not on selective attention. This conclusion was reached by a team of scientists from Russia (Ural Federal University, Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education, Lomonosov Moscow State University) and Germany, who conducted a study of cognitive factors that determine individual differences in working memory capacity. The results of the study are published (https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/13/2/92) in the journal Behavioral Sciences.

Working memory is a set of processes that allow you to store and temporarily use information to understand speech, read, apply mathematical abilities, teach and reason. It is one of the types of short-term memory. Scientists have found that the better a person concentrates, the more information he can remember and keep in his head.

In the work, the experts considered two main factors that are associated with the amount of working memory - attention control and selective attention.

The study was conducted on a Russian-speaking sample of 111 people aged 18 to 37 years. Participants performed various tasks to assess working memory: they memorized and reproduced rows of numbers, letters, and simple colored objects. To assess selective attention, participants were asked to solve a visual search task: to find one letter L among many letters T. To determine the ability to control attention, respondents had to respond to one presented stimulus and ignore a competing one (for example, read a word but not pay attention to its conflicting color or to direct the gaze in a certain direction). As a result, using statistical modeling methods, scientists confirmed that attentional control and working memory capacity are quite strongly related, while selective attention and working memory are independent processes.

The scientists plan to study in more detail the factors of individual differences: what may be the differences in brain function in people with a small and large capacity of working memory. Such a study will make it possible to create a psychophysiological model of differences in working memory, which is important both from a fundamental point of view and for the diagnosis and development of cognitive abilities.