title: The domain-specific and domain-general relationships of visuospatial working memory to reasoning ability.
abstract: The degree to which visuospatial working memory (VSWM) is separable from working memory in general is an open question. On one hand, the construct is often researched as a unitary, domain-specific system. On the other, there is evidence that VWSM shares a common processing component with verbal memory. One might interpret this shared component as domain-general attention. We used confirmatory factor analysis to demonstrate that VSWM shares a domain-general component with verbal memory tasks and has a domain-specific component that is independent of verbal memory. Furthermore, the domain-general component was found to correlate with reasoning ability in both the visuospatial and verbal domains. The domain-specific component only correlated with reasoning ability when the tests had a strong visuospatial component. We argue that theories of VSWM need to place greater emphasis on its multiply determined nature.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Arizona State University, Glendale, AZ, 85306-4908, USA. zach.shipstead@asu.edu.
authors.forename: Zach
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Shipstead
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Arizona State University, Glendale, AZ, 85306-4908, USA.
authors.forename: Jade
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yonehiro
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013850:Thinking / Q000502:physiology*; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Fluid intelligence; Reasoning; Visuospatial working memory; Working memory capacity