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Measuring verbal working memory capacity: A reading span task for laboratory and web-based use
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Description: ************************************************************************* All materials can be downloaded from https://github.com/janakl4us/workingmemory. ************************************************************************* Typically, working memory (WM) capacity as a source of individual differences is assessed by complex span tasks which combine a processing and a storage task. However, there are no standardized open-source versions, and the tasks that are used are not easily comparable. We introduce a browser-based version of the reading span task, which yielded normally distributed recall performance scores. Next, we provide a within-participant comparison of this task to two other complex span tasks. Finally, we introduce a web-based version of the reading span task. WM scores were comparable to those obtained in the laboratory, but web participants were also faster and made more mistakes in the processing task. We conclude that the task introduced here is an adequate way to measure verbal WM capacity in the laboratory. In addition, it may prove to be a useful, time-efficient online tool, for instance to extract extreme groups from a larger sample.