Further evidence relating mental capacity, short-term storage space, and operational efficiency.
According to R. Case, a subject's Total Processing Space is the sum of his Short-term Storage Space (STSS) and Operating Space (OS). Case has hypothesized a trade-off between the two, that is, an increase in operational efficiency leads to a decrease in Operating Space and consequently more Short-term Storage Space is available for information processing. To test this hypothesis 137 high school students were tested to estimate operational efficiency (assigned a time limit to finish the Figural Intersection Test), Pascual-Leone's Structural M-capacity, Ms (i.e., STSS in Case's model), and Functional M-capacity, Mf. Besides other results a significant positive correlation of .37 was obtained between operational efficiency and Ms/STSS, which suggests that subjects find it difficult to distribute attentional load from one reserve (OS) to another (STSS).
Saud de Nuñez
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Universidad de Oriente, Estado Sucre, Venezuela.
Rodriguez Rojas
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Niaz
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D000293:Adolescent; D001288:Attention; D005260:Female; D005364:Field Dependence-Independence; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011340:Problem Solving; D011930:Reaction Time