Gonthier, C., & Thomassin, N. (2015). Strategy use fully
mediates the relationship between working memory capacity and performance on
Raven’s matrices. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144, 916-924.
Working memory capacity (WMC) refers to the amount of
information that can be held briefly in mind for processing. Working memory
capacity is closely associated with fluid intelligence, the ability to think
logically and solve problems in novel situations. It has been suggested that
working memory capacity and fluid intelligence are related because they both
rely on controlled attention, the ability to direct one’s attention to relevant
information and away from irrelevant information. It may be, however, that the
ability to use strategies to support working memory drives the relationship
between working memory capacity and fluid intelligence. Strategies are
procedures that facilitate the achievement of a higher level goal or task.
The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which
strategy use may influence performance on a common fluid intelligence measure.
In the fluid intelligence task, the person is shown an incomplete matrix that
follows logical rules along with 8 possible pieces to complete the matrix. The
person chooses the piece that completes the matrix. One effective strategy that
can be used to complete this task, constructive matching, is to create a mental
representation of the answer and then look for a match among the alternatives.
A less effective strategy, response elimination, consists of comparing the
features of the problem and each alternative response until one answer is
identified. In study 1, university students were asked to complete the matrix
reasoning task either without instruction (control) or after receiving instruction
on the use of the constructive matching strategy. It was hypothesized that if
strategy use accounts for the relationship between working memory capacity and
fluid intelligence, then the relationship between these two constructs should
decrease when participants are not using their strategy of choice. The results
were consistent with this hypothesis in that the relationship between WMC and
matrix reasoning was lower in the group instructed on a particular strategy. In
study 2, participants were asked about their strategy use after completing the
task (which was completed without instruction on strategy use). Results
revealed that the relationship between WMC and matrix reasoning was mediated by
strategy use.
The findings suggest that strategies play a critical role in
the relationship between working memory and fluid intelligence. Teaching
strategies to support working memory may be effective in supporting reasoning.
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