title: The influence of lapses of attention on working memory capacity.
abstract: In three experiments, the influence of lapses of attention on working memory (WM) capacity measures was examined. Participants performed various change detection tasks while also reporting whether they were focused on the current task or whether they were unfocused and mind-wandering. Participants reported that they were mind-wandering roughly 27% of the time, and when participants reported mind-wandering, their performance was worse compared to when they reported being on-task. Low WM capacity individuals reported more mind-wandering and lapses of attention than high WM capacity individuals, and mind-wandering and filtering abilities were shown to make independent contributions to capacity estimates. These results provide direct support for the notion that the ability to focus attention on-task and prevent lapses of attention is an important contributor to performance on measures of WM capacity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 97403, USA. nashu@uoregon.edu.
authors.forename: Nash
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Unsworth
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 97403, USA.
authors.forename: Matthew K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Robison
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Individual differences; Lapses of attention; Working memory