Working memory capacity and mental rotationevidence for a domain-general view

  1. Pardo-Vázquez, José L. 1
  2. Fernández Rey, José 1
  1. 1 Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
    info

    Universidade de Santiago de Compostela

    Santiago de Compostela, España

    ROR https://ror.org/030eybx10

Revista:
The Spanish Journal of Psychology

ISSN: 1138-7416

Año de publicación: 2012

Volumen: 15

Número: 3

Páginas: 881-890

Tipo: Artículo

DOI: 10.5209/REV_SJOP.2012.V15.N3.39381 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openAcceso abierto editor

Otras publicaciones en: The Spanish Journal of Psychology

Resumen

Despite the existence of numerous studies that examined the relationship between working memory capacity and performance in complex cognitive tasks, it remains unclear whether this capacity is domain specific or domain general. In addition, the available empirical evidence is somewhat contradictory. In this work we have studied the role of verbal working memory capacity in a non-verbal task � mental image rotation. If this capacity were domain specific it would be expected that high and low verbal span participants would obtain similar results in the mental rotation task. We have found that this is not the case as the high span participants performed better in terms of both speed and accuracy. Moreover, these differences depended on the processing component of the mental rotation task: the higher the processing requirements the higher the differences as a function of the working memory capacity. Therefore, the evidence presented here supports the domain general hypothesis.

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