Cited by 39Cognitive Abilities and TestingNeural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesDevelopmental and Educational Neuropsychology

Measuring Working Memory Is All Fun and Games: A Four-Dimensional Spatial Game Predicts Cognitive Task Performance

Atkins, Sharona M., Sprenger, Amber M., Colflesh, Gregory J. H., Briner, Timothy L., Buchanan, Jacob B., Chavis, Sydnee E., Chen, Sy-yu, Iannuzzi, Gregory L. +6 more·2014·Experimental Psychology

Abstract

We developed a novel four-dimensional spatial task called Shapebuilder and used it to predict performance on a wide variety of cognitive tasks. In six experiments, we illustrate that Shapebuilder: (1) Loads on a common factor with complex working memory (WM) span tasks and that it predicts performance on quantitative reasoning tasks and Ravens Progressive Matrices (Experiment 1), (2) Correlates well with traditional complex WM span tasks (Experiment 2), predicts performance on the conditional go/no go task (Experiment 3) and N-back (Experiment 4), and showed weak or nonsignificant correlations with the Attention Networks Task (Experiment 5), and task switching (Experiment 6). Shapebuilder shows that it exhibits minimal skew and kurtosis, and shows good reliability. We argue that Shapebuilder has many advantages over existing measures of WM, including the fact that it is largely language independent, is not prone to ceiling effects, and take less than 6 min to complete on average.

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Crossref · 10.1027/1618-3169/a000262

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Authors
Atkins, S. M., Sprenger, A. M., Colflesh, G. J. H., Briner, T. L., Buchanan, J. B., Chavis, S. E., Chen, S.-Y., Iannuzzi, G. L., Kashtelyan, V., Dowling, E., Harbison, J. I., Bolger, D. J., Bunting, M. F., & Dougherty, M. R.
Affiliations
University of Maryland, College Park (US)
Venue
Experimental Psychology
Published
2014-01-01
Volume
61
Issue
6
Pages
417-438
ISSN
  • 0949-3964 (ISSN-L)
  • 1618-3169
  • 2190-5142
OpenAlex
W2106522860
Cited by
39
References
63
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 4 · 2013: 1
FWCI
3.70
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology › Developmental and Educational Neuropsychology
Keywords
working memory, spatial tasks, cognitive ability prediction, Raven's Progressive Matrices, quantitative reasoning, N-back, task switching, attentional networks, language independence, ceiling effect
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Attention, Cognition, Female, Humans, Male, Memory, Short-Term, Task Performance and Analysis, Reproducibility of Results, Young Adult, Stroop Test

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