Validy and Reliability of two Working Memory Tests: Aritmetic Amplitude and Counting

Abstract

Working Memory is a memory system involved in the storage and concurrent processing of information (Baddeley, 2000). Arithmetic Span (Conway et al., 2005) and Counting Span (Conway, et al. 2005) are two traditional verbal working memory capacity tasks. The aim of this article is to present reliability and validity data of Arithmetic and Counting Span Tasks. They were administered, along with Reading Span task, to 88 university students with a mean age of 23.10 years. The reliability analysis showed an excellent internal consistency, and a one factor model with a very good fit to the data was observed using a confirmatory factor analysis. These results indicate that both tasks are reliable and valid measures to assess verbal working memory capacity.

Keywords

• Working Memory
• Counting Span
• Arithmetic Span
• Adaptation