Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Oct 18:10:2313.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02313. eCollection 2019.

Relation Between Working Memory Capacity of Biological Movements and Fluid Intelligence

Tian Ye  1 , Peng Li  2 , Qiong Zhang  1 , Quan Gu  1 , Xiqian Lu  1 , Zaifeng Gao  1 , Mowei Shen  1
Affiliations

Relation Between Working Memory Capacity of Biological Movements and Fluid Intelligence

Tian Ye et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Studies have revealed that there is an independent buffer for holding biological movements (BM) in working memory (WM), and this BM-WM has a unique link to our social ability. However, it remains unknown as to whether the BM-WM also correlates to our cognitive abilities, such as fluid intelligence (Gf). Since BM processing has been considered as a hallmark of social cognition, which distinguishes from canonical cognitive abilities in many ways, it has been hypothesized that only canonical object-WM (e.g., memorizing color patches), but not BM-WM, emerges to have an intimate relation with Gf. We tested this prediction by measuring the relationship between WM capacity of BM and Gf. With two Gf measurements, we consistently found moderate correlations between BM-WM capacity, the score of both Raven's advanced progressive matrix (RAPM), and the Cattell culture fair intelligence test (CCFIT). This result revealed, for the first time, a close relation between WM and Gf with a social stimulus, and challenged the double-dissociation hypothesis for distinct functions of different WM buffers.

Keywords: IQ; PLDs; biological motion; fluid intelligence; working memory.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
A schematic demonstration of procedures for measuring BM-WM capacity.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Results of Pilot study. (A) The correlation between BM-WM capacity and CCFIT. (B) The correlation between BM-WM capacity and RAPM.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Results of formal study. (A) The correlation between BM-WM capacity and CCFIT. (B) The correlation between BM-WM capacity and RAPM.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Arslanova I., Galvez-Pol A., Calvo-Merino B., Forster B. (2019). Searching for bodies: ERP evidence for independent somatosensory processing during visual search for body-related information. Neuroimage 195 140–149. 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.03.037 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Atkinson A. P., Dittrich W. H., Gemmell A. J., Young A. W. (2004). Emotion perception from dynamic and static body expressions in point-light and full-light displays. Perception 33 717–746. 10.1068/p5096 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Baddeley A. (1996). The fractionation of working memory. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 93 13468–13472. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Baddeley A. D., Hitch G. (1974). Working memory. Psychol. Learn. Motiv. 8 47–89.
    1. Barbey A. K., Koenigs M. R., Grafman J. (2013). Dorsolateral prefrontal contributions to human working memory. Cortex 49 1195–1205. 10.1016/j.cortex.2012.05.022 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources