Modelling Working Memory Capacity: Is the Magical Number Four, Seven, or Does it Depend on What You Are Counting?

ABSTRACT: Limited attentional capacity is essential to working memory. How its limit should be assessed is a debated issue. Five experiments compare Cowan's 4-units and Pascual-Leone's 7-units models of limited working memory capacity, with presentation time and attention to operative schemes as potential explanations of this discrepancy. Experiments 1a-1c used the Compound Stimuli Visual Information (CSVI) task, with long versus brief presentation. Capacity was estimated with the Bose-Einstein model, assuming a different number of attending acts in each condition. Participants' k estimates in both conditions were highly correlated and the means were not different, indicating that the same capacity is assessed in both conditions. Experiments 2 and 3 used the 5000-msec CSVI, and the Visual Arr

SUBMITTER: Morra S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11259112 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature