Human cognition benchmark · Working memory
Working Memory Tasks (N-Back, Digit Span, Corsi Block)
Short name: Working Memory · Introduced 1958 · Brown, Peterson, Baddeley, Kirchner
Tasks measuring the capacity to hold and manipulate information in mind over seconds.
What it measures
The limited-capacity system that maintains and updates task-relevant information during cognition.
Format
Digit Span (recall sequences forward/backward), N-Back (indicate whether current stimulus matches one N steps back), Corsi Block (spatial sequence reproduction).
Scoring
Maximum span length, hit rate minus false alarms (d'), or load thresholds. Typical adult digit span: 7±2 forward; 4–5 backward.
Notable results
- Working-memory capacity correlates ~0.5–0.7 with fluid intelligence.
- Declines with age, sleep loss, and neurodegenerative disease.
- Improvable on the trained task but transfer to g is contested (Melby-Lervåg, 2013).
Strengths
- Highly diagnostic of executive dysfunction.
- Mechanistic links to prefrontal-parietal networks.
Limitations
- Task-specific scores often don't generalize.
- Susceptible to strategy effects.
Related entities
Other human cognition benchmarks
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Standardized batteries estimating general cognitive ability (g) relative to a normed population.
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