Examining variation in working memory capacity and retrieval in cued recall

Abstract

Two experiments examined the notion that individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) are partially due to differences in search set size in cued recall. High and low WMC individuals performed variants of a cued recall task with either unrelated cue words (Experiment 1) or specific cue phrases (Experiment 2). Across both experiments low WMC individuals recalled fewer items, made more errors, and had longer correct recall latencies than high WMC individuals. Cross-experimental analyses suggested that providing participants with more specific cues decreased the size of the search set, leading to better recall overall. However, these effects were equivalent for high and low WMC. It is argued that these results are consistent with a search model framework in which low WMC individuals search through a larger set of items than high WMC individuals.

Keywords:

• Working memory
• Individual differences
• Cued recall

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Aaron Biddle for data collection assistance and to Greg Spillers for comments on a previous version of the paper.

Notes

¹Note that there were no differences in typing speed for high and low WMC individuals based on the typing exercise (both Fs < 1, both ps>.55).

²Note that there were no differences in the two different intrusion error latencies in either experiment (both ts < 1, both ps>.44). Furthermore, although based on a reduced number of participants, this also did not differ for high and low WMC individuals (both Fs < 1, both ps>.56).