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An automated version of the operation span task

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Abstract

We present an easy-to-administer and automated version of a popular working memory (WM) capacity task (operation span; Ospan) that is mouse driven, scores itself, and requires little intervention on the part of the experimenter. It is shown that this version of Ospan correlates well with other measures of WM capacity and has both good internal consistency (alpha=.78) and test-retest reliability (.83). In addition, the automated version of Ospan (Aospan) was shown to load on the same factor as two other WM measures. This WM capacity factor correlated with a factor composed of fluid abilities measures. The utility of the Aospan was further demonstrated by analyzing response times (RTs) that indicated that RT measures obtained in the task accounted for additional variance in predicting fluid abilities. Our results suggest that Aospan is a reliable and valid indicator of WM capacity that can be applied to a wide array of research domains.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 30332-0170, Atlanta, GA

    Nash Unsworth, Richard P. Heitz & Randall W. Engle

  2. Maryville College, Maryville, Tennessee

    Josef C. Schrock

Authors
  1. Nash Unsworth

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  2. Richard P. Heitz

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  3. Josef C. Schrock

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  4. Randall W. Engle

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Corresponding author

Correspondence toRandall W. Engle.

Additional information

This work was supported by Grant F49620-00-1-131 from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. We are grateful to Michelle Grant, Josh Holt, Melissa Jensen, Jessica Parsons, Tom Redick, Paul Tran, and Liz Weldon for data collection assistance.

Note—This article was accepted by the previous editor, Jonathan Vaughan.

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