Behavior Research Methods

2009, 41 (2), 309-317

doi:10.3758/BRM.41.2.309

Picture span test: Measuring visual

working memory capacity involved in
remembering and comprehension
AZUMI TANABE AND NAOYUKI OSAKA
Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

The working memory system is assumed to operate with domain-specific (verbal and visuospatial) resources
that support cognitive activities. However, in research on visuospatial working memory, an appropriate visual
working memory task has not been established. For the present study, a novel task was developed: the picture
span test (PST). This test requires memorizing parts of scene images while comprehending various scene situ-
ations simultaneously. Results of correlation analyses and a factor analysis among college students (n  52)
validated that PST can predict visuospatial cognitive skills whereas a simple visual storage task and a verbal
working memory task cannot. Furthermore, an error analysis indicated that inhibition is important for visuo-
spatial working memory. Additionally, PST is considered to reflect individual differences in the visual working
memory capacity. These findings suggest that the PST is appropriate for measuring visual working memory
capacity and can elucidate its relationship to higher cognition.

Numerous studies of working memory have suggested
that the working memory system supports various high-
level cognitive activities, such as reading comprehension,
reasoning, language learning, and so on (e.g., Daneman &
Carpenter, 1980; Engle, Tuholski, Laughlin, & Conway,
1999; Kyllonen & Christal, 1990; M. Osaka & N. Osaka,
1994). The concept of working memory represents a mod-
ification and extension of an earlier concept, short-term
memory, which assumed a mere passive storage function.
Since the concept of working memory is assumed to in-
volve executive function, working memory tasks require
processing and maintaining information. Therefore, tasks
measuring the capacity of working memory have higher
correlations with cognitive ability measures than those of
other traditional short-term memory tasks (for reviews,
see Daneman & Merikle, 1996). Studies of working mem-
ory frequently use the reading span test (RST), which re-
quires reading several sentences aloud while maintaining
a word from each sentence. As a result, the capacity of
working memory measured by span tasks (RST and so on)
is considered to be predictive of cognitive skills.
However, further problems arise from several findings
in research on working memory. In this study, these un-
settled problems are examined in more detail.
The Separability in Working Memory Resources
The relation between working memory and cognitive
abilities has been proposed to involve domain-specific
resources (i.e., verbal and visuospatial; Baddeley, 1986).
This is postulated in Baddeley’s model of working mem-
ory, which has a domain-general executive component
and two domain-specific storage components—namely,
the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketch pad.
Consistent with this proposal, Shah and Miyake (1996)
have demonstrated the separability of spatial and verbal
working memory resources using the spatial span test.
They showed that scores on the spatial span test corre-
late positively with spatial ability measures but not with
verbal ability measures. By contrast, RST scores corre-
late positively with verbal ability measures but not with
spatial ability measures (N. P. Friedman & Miyake, 2000;
Handley, Capon, Copp, & Harper, 2002; Miyake, Fried-
man, Rettinger, Shah, & Hegarty, 2001; N. Osaka et al.,
2004; Shah & Miyake, 1996). These results lead us to
the conclusion that working memory tasks that require
maintaining materials of a certain domain can predict only
cognitive skills of the corresponding domain.
Moreover, some studies have demonstrated a separabil-
ity of spatial and visual working memory resources by the
selective interference with memory performance (Della
Sala, Gray, Baddeley, Allamano, & Wilson, 1999; Hecker
& Mapperson, 1997; Klauer & Zhao, 2004; Tresch, Sin-
namon, & Seamon, 1993), by the differentiation of devel-
opment (Hamilton, Coates, & Heffernan, 2003; Logie &
Pearson, 1997), and the differentiation of the neural basis
(Courtney, Ungerleider, Keil, & Haxby, 1996; Smith,
Jonides, Koeppe, Awh, Schumacher, & Minoshima,
1995); but these studies used only simple storage tasks
(not working memory tasks—i.e., processing-and-storage
tasks). Thus, it is conceivable that an appropriate working
memory task has not yet been established in the visual
domain.

A. Tanabe, azumi@l05.mbox.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp

309 © 2009 The Psychonomic Society, Inc.

310 TANABE AND OSAKA
Considering the domain-specific character of working
memory resources, it is necessary to examine features of
the working memory system in each domain separately,
especially the visual domain.
The Differentiation Between Working Memory
Tasks and Short-Term Memory Tasks
Studies of verbal working memory have suggested that
working memory tasks such as RST better predict cogni-
tive ability measures than do traditional short-term mem-
ory tasks, such as the word span test (memorizing word
lists), the digit span test (memorizing a set of numbers),
and so on (Daneman & Merikle, 1996). In other words, the
predictability of cognitive abilities mainly characterized
working memory tasks to indicate that the tasks are valid
measures of working memory, not of short-term memory.
However, few studies on visuospatial working memory
have not shown differences in cognitive involvement be-
tween a working memory task and a simple storage task;
that is, correlations between the spatial span test and spa-
tial ability measures did not differ from those of a simple
spatial storage task (Shah & Miyake, 1996), whereas
verbal working memory studies to date showed that the
working memory task, RST, has higher correlations with
cognitive tasks than the simple word storage task does,
indicating that a parallel differentiation of the crucial fea-
ture of working memory has not been ascertained for the
visuospatial domain. This differentiation must be obtained
with an appropriate task to measure the capacity of visual
working memory.
In light of the problems described above, the primary
goal of the present research was to develop a new visual
working memory task offering greater prediction of re-
lated cognitive activities than a simple storage task.
A Novel Visual Working Memory Task:
The Picture Span Test
To solve the problems discussed above, we developed
a new visuospatial working memory task named the pic-
ture span test (PST) in order to measure the capacity to
“read” and maintain visual information. Corresponding
to reading sentences in RST, PST entails seeing visual
contexts—that is, understanding the situation in the scene.
Accordingly, PST uses scene images containing familiar
objects within context-rich surroundings. In addition to
remembering a designated target object, participants are
required to judge whether each object in the scene is likely
to appear in the situation of the background (congruent)
or not (incongruent). This procedure was modeled after
a variant of RST, the silly sentence span test, which re-
quires judging each sentence to be semantically true or
false in order to confirm that participants actually read
it (Baddeley, Logie, & Nimmo-Smith, 1985). Since such
scene perception has been considered “comprehension”
(A. Friedman, 1979), we reasoned that PST would predict
relevant cognitive abilities as well as RST does.
To confirm the validity of the novel task, we investi-
gated whether the score on PST positively correlated with
visuospatial ability measures. In addition, a verbal work-
ing memory task and a visual simple storage task were
included in this study. We used psychometric subtests of
visuospatial abilities from Kyoto University NX15 intel-
ligence test (R. Osaka & Umemoto, 1984), a standard-
ized intelligence test widely used in Japan, as visuospa-
tial cognitive ability measures, and, as a verbal working
memory task, we used the Japanese reading span test
(M. Osaka & N. Osaka, 1994). The visual simple stor-
age task required memorizing images of familiar objects.
This task was called the simple object span test (SOST)
and was designed as a visual analogue of the word span
test, which typically has lower correlations with language
comprehension measures (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980).
We predicted that the score of PST, our novel task, should
show higher correlations with the performances of visuo-
spatial cognitive tasks than the verbal working memory
task (RST) and the visual simple storage task (SOST)
would, if PST truly reflects the capacity of visual working
memory closely related to visuospatial cognition.
The Relationship With Individual Differences
To examine the skills involved in the relation between
the capacity of visual working memory and cognitive ac-
tivities, the errors in PST were investigated. In the present
study, we focused on intrusion errors and token errors.
Intrusion errors are defined as false recall or recognition
of information presented simultaneously with target infor-
mation. Several studies of verbal working memory have
analyzed intrusion errors (e.g., De Beni, Palladino, Paz-
zaglia, & Cornoldi, 1998; M. Osaka, Nishizaki, Komori,
& N. Osaka, 2002). The number of intrusion errors has
been considered an index of poor inhibition (the ability
to suppress irrelevant information) in comprehension (De
Beni et al., 1998; Gernsbacher, Varner, & Faust, 1990). In-
hibition is assumed to be included in executive functions
of working memory (Miyake et al., 2000), so we predicted
that intrusion errors in PST would significantly correlate
with performance. By contrast, token errors were defined
as false recognition of a novel object that belongs to the
same category as the target object (Hollingworth, 2006).
If a participant memorized target objects as words (i.e.,
objects’ names), rather than as visual information, the
number of token errors would increase, so token errors
were not expected to reflect performance. In view of these
predictions, a secondary goal of the present research was
to demonstrate that inhibition plays a crucial role in visual
working memory, but verbal coding does not.
Finally, our advanced goal concerns individual differ-
ences in visual working memory. It has been found that
individual differences in working memory capacities can
account for many aspects of individual differences in
cognitive skills (Baddeley et al., 1985; Just & Carpenter,
1992). Likewise, it is readily supposed that the capacity
of visual working memory should reflect individual dif-
ferences. We aimed to ascertain whether PST allows a sig-
nificant distinction between individuals with high visual
working memory spans and those with low spans.
These analyses may demonstrate the relationship be-
tween visual working memory capacity and executive

function and indicate that PST has the potential to be a
valuable tool for future research on individual differences
of visual working memory.
METHOD
Participants
Fifty-two graduate and undergraduate students at Kyoto Uni-
versity (35 male, 17 female; mean age, 24.3; SD, 3.35; age range,
20–37 years) participated as volunteers. All participants reported
normal or corrected-to-normal vision and no color vision defects.
Materials, Design, and Procedure
Participants performed three memory span tasks (PST, RST, and
SOST) and three psychometric subtests from Kyoto University’s
NX15 intelligence test (R. Osaka & Umemoto, 1984): the plate
matching test, the paper unfolding test, and the figure reconstruc-
tion test. Psychometric subtests were administered using paper and
pencils. PST and SOST were performed on a Windows XP per-
sonal computer using Visual Basic 6.0. The images for PST and
SOST were newly generated by Shade 7.5 (commercial 3-D graphic
software) and connected content libraries (e-frontier, Inc., Tokyo)
as rendered 3-D computer graphic images. Each image for SOST
contained a daily object (see Figure 1B for examples), and each
image consisted of 3– 4 objects and a scenery background (e.g.,
room, coast, street, park, and so on; see Figure 1A for examples
of scene images). The scene images subtended a visual angle of
24.6º  18.6º (640  480 pixels), and the object images subtended
an angle of 6.1º  6.1º (150  150 pixels) at the 45-cm viewing
distance. Seventy images of scenes in PST and 70 images of objects
in SOST were used. Each image was used once in all trials. RST
was done using a booklet of index cards with printed sentences. The
set size of each memory span test was increased from 2 to 5, and
in each set size five trials were performed, as usual. The order of
memory span tests and psychometric tests was pseudorandomized
and counterbalanced across participants. Detailed procedures of
each task are described below.
PST. This task was designed to assess visual working memory
capacity. Participants were presented with a set of scene images for
4 sec. The task required judging whether each object was congruent
with the semantic constraints imposed by the background of each
scene image, while concurrently remembering the part of the target
surrounded with a red square frame; see the top and second images
of Figure 1A, in which the red frames are represented as gray square
frames in the scene images. The top scene contains congruent ob-
jects: a desk, a chair, and a lamp, with the background “a room,”
and the second scene contains an incongruent object: a traffic sign.
The red frame that indicated the target part subtended a visual angle
of 6.1º  6.1º. The frame was presented for the final 1 sec of the
duration in order to prevent participants from memorizing the target
without judging the context. Participants were instructed to respond
by clicking the button placed on the computer screen. Half of all
scene images contained incongruent objects (one incongruent ob-
ject per image). The evaluation of congruence between an object
and a background was conducted via questionnaire in a pilot study.
The order of images was randomly assigned. As the articulatory
suppression, participants were asked to count aloud repeatedly from
1 to 9 during the presentation of scene images, in order to inter-
fere with verbal encoding—that is, the strategy by which the target
was remembered as the object name without visual features. As a
method of the articulatory suppression, the use of counting was
based on the study by Baddeley and Andrade (2000). After the last
image of each set was presented, four choices from each image for
serial recognition were presented for 1 sec, and participants were
required to click on the correct answers (see the third and fourth
images of Figure 1A; these images are choices for recognition).
The choices were composed of the target part or the token (a main
object in the target part was replaced by the token object; in the
PICTURE SPAN TEST FOR VISUAL WORKING MEMORY 311
example of Figure 1A, the leftmost part of the third image repre-
sents the part of the token object, a novel chair), another part of the
original scene image (in the example of Figure 1A, the second part
on the left of the third image and the third part on the left of the
fourth image represent such parts), a part of a novel object, and the
asterisk to select in case there was not a correct answer among the
choices (the third image of Figure 1A applies in this case). Images
of choices were randomly located, except for the asterisk, which
was located at the far right of the choices (see the third and fourth
images of Figure 1A).
SOST. This task was designed to measure the visual storage ca-
pacity of traditional short-term memory. Participants were presented
with a set of images of a familiar object with a uniform background
of olive green. None of the target objects contained this color, to
avoid their blending into the background. This method followed
Hollingworth (2006). Participants were required to count aloud re-
peatedly from 1 to 9 as a means of the articulatory suppression.
Similarly to PST, four choices for serial recognition were presented
for 1 sec after each set: the target object (or the token object), two
novel objects, and the asterisk. Other procedures were the same as
in PST (for an example of SOST, see Figure 1B).
RST. This task was designed to measure the capacity of verbal
working memory. Participants were required to read aloud a set of
unrelated Japanese sentences while concurrently remembering an
underlined word (the target word) in each sentence. After reading the
sentences in each set, participants were requested to orally recall, in
the correct serial order, all of the target words of the given set. RST
was administered using standard procedures (Daneman & Carpen-
ter, 1980; M. Osaka & N. Osaka, 1994).
Next, three visuospatial subtests of the Kyoto University NX15
intelligence test were used to assess visuospatial cognitive abilities.
The plate matching test. This task required imagining a digit
plate and the character plate and rotating the plates mentally. Each
plate consisted of a matrix (four rows and four lines). In each cell
of the digit plate there was a digit from 1 to 16, and in each cell of
the character plate there was a hiragana (Japanese cursive syllabary)
character, chosen from among i, ro, ha, ni, ho, he, to, chi, ri, nu, ru,
wo, wa, ka, yo, and ta (the order of these characters is equivalent to
the alphabetic order of old Japanese). When the mobile digit plate is
put on the immobile character plate, matching between the character
and the digit is performed mentally to obtain answers (3 min for
12 subitems; see Figure 2A). In this example, participants need to
say which character was under the digit 4).
The paper unfolding test. This task required imagining a square
sheet of paper folded in two, three, or four, and imagining making
several holes in the sheet. When the sheet was unfolded, the loca-
tion of holes in the sheet of paper was to be identified (1 min for
12 subitems; see Figure 2B). In this example, participants had to
imagine that a square sheet of paper folded in two had had two holes
made in it, then they had to choose the correct illustration of the
sheet unfolded.
The figure reconstruction test. This task required imagining
a figure divided and combining the fragments to reconstruct the
square. The line to divide the figure was to be drawn (2 min for
13 subitems; see Figure 2C). In this example, the triangle had to be
divided and combined into a square. Participants were instructed to
draw the correct dividing line to reconstruct the square.
Data Analyses
Scoring and evaluating span measures. The score of each span
test was defined as the highest set size for which a participant could
correctly answer three of five trials; but if a participant correctly re-
membered only two of five trials, the participant was given a score of
0.5 for that set size. For example, if a participant was correct on three
of the five four-sentence trials, the participant was assigned a span
of 4. If the participant was correct on only two of the five trials, the
participant was assigned a span of 3.5. This method of scoring has
been used in several previous studies (e.g., M. Osaka & N. Osaka,
1994; Shah & Miyake, 1996).
312 TANABE AND OSAKA

A
Picture Span Test

4 sec

4 sec

1 sec

1 sec

B
Simple Object Span Test

1 sec

1 sec

1 sec

1 sec

Figure 1. Examples of PST and SOST. (A) PST at Set Size 2. In the
present experiment, stimuli were presented in color. (B) SOST at Set
Size 2. Stimuli of this test in the present experiment were also presented
in color.
 PICTURE SPAN TEST FOR VISUAL WORKING MEMORY 313

A spatial subtests using SPSS 12.0 for Windows. In this analysis, we

Plate Matching Test extracted factors using the maximum likelihood method, then per-
formed a promax rotation on factors whose eigenvalues exceeded 1.
The factor analysis was expected to show that PST and visuospa-
4 tial measures load separately from RST (verbal working memory
Question:
3 8 measure). Although the number of participants and the scales were
2 7 when 1 is on smaller than desirable, Shah and Miyake (1996) showed a separa-
1 6 12
5 1
1 16 bility of visuospatial resources and verbal resources using a factor
0
1 15 and 2 is on analysis with a two-factor solution. Since PST is similar to the task
9
14 what is under 4 ? they had used in developing a working memory task, and since they
13
used a similar sample size, our analysis also was assumed to be a
Answer: two-factor solution (visuospatial/verbal).
The evaluation of error rates. Since the total number of error
trials differed with each participant, the error analysis used an an-
B gular transformation value of the error rate. The intrusion error rate
Paper Unfolding Test was evaluated as the ratio of the number of intrusion errors to the
which is right? total number of errors. The token error rate was computed by di-
viding the number of token errors into the number of error trials
containing token choices.
Grouping of participants. To examine individual differences in
working memory capacity and its function (e.g., Daneman & Car-
penter, 1980; M. Osaka & N. Osaka, 1994; Turner & Engle, 1989),
we selected two groups of participants by the weighted items span of
PST, a more continuous method of scoring. The weighted items span
was determined by totaling the number of correct sets when all trials
were recognized. This method of scoring was used in Engle, Cantor,
and Carullo (1992), May, Hasher, and Kane (1999), and so on. Par-
ticipants whose score was more than 40 were assigned to one group
C (named high PST, n  12), and the other group consisted of partici-
Figure Reconstruction Test pants whose score was less than 20 (named low PST, n  12). Then
the two groups were compared on their respective performances.
Question Answer
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Table 1, the summary of descriptive statistics for each

task, shows that the mean capacity of PST is 3.84; this
Figure 2. Examples of three psychometric subtests. (A) Plate
matching test. (B) Paper unfolding test. (C) Figure reconstruc- value is consistent with those from several reports that
tion test. visual working memory capacity ranges from 3 to 4
(Luck & Vogel, 1997; Vogel, Woodman, & Luck, 2001).
The mean capacity of SOST is similar to PST: 3.59. Al-
In addition, we estimated two values of the reliability of our new though the score for PST might seem to be higher than
task. First, in order to show the internal consistency, we computed that for SOST, it did not differ significantly [t(51)  1.29,
Cronbach’s alpha; second, in order to show the stability, we exam- p  .1]. Despite the absence of a significant difference
ined the test–retest reliability at intervals of more than 10 days.
Twenty-five of the participants were able to complete retest PST
in the scores between PST and SOST, it is possible that
(the second PST). Computing Cronbach’s alpha for span tests was PST may be easier because some participants are able to
by Turner and Engle’s method (see Shah & Miyake, 1996; Turner & use context information as retrieval cues. However, the
Engle, 1989). We first divided the span tests into five subsections
corresponding to the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth trials at
each set size. We then calculated five internal subscores by adding Table 1
the total number of correctly answered items for each subsection. Summary of Descriptive Statistics for the
Cronbach’s alpha was derived from the correlations among these Measures in the Present Experiment
five subscores. Since not all participants were able to take part in Measure M SD Min Max Reliability
the second PST, the test–retest reliability was estimated as a cor- PST 3.84 1.11 1 5 0.76
recting reliability coefficient for restriction in range. The score on SOST 3.59 1.11 1 5 0.63
the second PST was predicted to be better than that on the first PST RST 3.30 1.01 1 5 0.89
because of the long-term memory of the first PST influencing the Plate match 6.63 1.91 3 11 0.58*
performance on the second PST. Therefore, we applied the modified Paper unfold 6.42 1.49 3 11 0.63*
estimated reliability without the assumption of homogeneity of error Figure reconstruct 7.81 3.48 0 13 0.87*
variance between two populations (Feldt & Brennan, 1989; see Ap- Note—PST, picture span test; SOST, simple object span test; RST,
pendix A for the tendency to increase the score of PST and details of reading span test; Plate match, the plate matching test; Paper unfold,
the calculation for the reliability coefficient). the paper unfolding test; Figure reconstruct, the figure reconstruction
Next, we examined whether the score of PST could predict visuo- test. *Estimates of reliability for three subtests from the Kyoto Univer-
spatial cognitive measures via Pearson product–moment correlation sity NX15 intelligence test were based on split-half (odd–even) reliabil-
coefficients, and we compared the correlation between the scores of ity coefficients, adjusted by the Spearman–Brown prophecy formula.
SOST and RST with these measures. In addition to the correlation This method followed Shah and Miyake (1996), but it is not regarded as
analysis, we did a factor analysis on three span tests and three visuo- an appropriate estimate for time-limited tests.
314 TANABE AND OSAKA

Table 2
Correlations Between Span Measures and Visuospatial Ability Measures
Plate Paper Figure
PST SOST RST Match Unfold Reconstruct
PST –
SOST .07 –
RST .24 .19 –
Plate match .28* .18 .29* –
Paper unfold .15 .12 .22 .46** –
Figure reconstruct .40** .12 .14 .51** .50** –
Note—See Table 1 for explanations of abbreviations. *p  .05. **p  .01.

question about such advantages is too complicated to be sisting of the general executive component and domain-
examined in this study. specific storage components (Baddeley, 1986).
The performance of contextual judgment (congruent To show that PST differs from RST in terms of corre-
or incongruent) in PST was above the chance level, 0.5 lations with visuospatial measures, a factor analysis was
[M  0.93, SD  0.05, t(51)  68.23, p  .001]. This
result confirms that, as we expected, participants correctly
judged contexts of images—that is, participants engaged
not only in memorizing the images, but also in judging
the contexts. We also examined two values of reliability.
The alpha estimated for PST was 0.76, which indicates
a sufficient and satisfactory value. Next, the correcting
reliability coefficient was 0.86: sufficient, but the second
performed. A clear two-factor solution emerged (Fac-
tor 1’s eigenvalue, 1.79; Factor 2’s eigenvalue, 1.21),
as indicated by the factor pattern matrix presented in
Figure 3 and Appendix B, despite the possibility of an
improper solution because Factor 2 was defined by only
one measure. However, the measure that loaded Factor
2 was RST, the only verbal measure used in this ex-
periment. Therefore, Factor 2 was not excluded and was
PST [M  4.42, SD  0.85, t(24)  3.67, p  .01] tended
to be higher than the first PST because of the feature of
a memory task. From these results, it follows that PST
is an appropriate and valid measure of visual working
memory.
Contrary to studies on visuospatial working memory
to date, the correlational analysis indicated that PST is
more related to visuospatial cognitive abilities than to the
relevant simple storage task. The correlation coefficients
between memory spans and psychometric tests are sum-
marized in Table 2, which showed that the score of PST
significantly correlated with scores on the paper unfold-
ing test and the figure reconstruction test, whereas that of
SOST did not. We then confirmed by partial correlation
analyses that the predictive ability of PST is independent
of other tasks. The correlation between PST and the figure
reconstruction test remained significant after the effects
considered a verbal factor. The cumulative percent of
variance accounted for, after the extraction of factors, is
46.08%. The breakdown is Factor 1, 20.76%; Factor 2,
25.33%. Factor 1 was loaded by PST (the magnitude of
loadings was .41) and the three visuospatial cognitive
subtests: the plate matching test, .61; the paper unfold-
ing test, .59; and the figure reconstruction test, .87 (see
Figure 3). Factor 1 was therefore considered a visuospa-
tial factor. Since the verbal factor (Factor 2) was loaded
only .12 by PST and the visuospatial factor (Factor 1)
was loaded only .03 by RST, it is suggested that PST
differs from RST in the domain to which it contributes.
That corresponds to the indication by Shah and Miyake
1.0 RST
of SOST and RST were partialed out (r  0.39, p  .01;
the other tests did not correlate significantly). 0.5
Additionally, PST and RST might have common fea-
tures, since the correlation between PST and RST tended SOST PST Plate match
Factor 2

to lower significance (r  0.24, p  .1), and RST also had

significant correlation with the plate matching test (r  0.0 Paper unfold
0.29, p  .5). It is quite likely that the feature in com- Fig. construct
mon is comprehension ability, because both PST and RST
need context comprehension; it has been suggested that
0.5
comprehension ability is modality-general (Gernsbacher
et al., 1990). It is plausible that the correlations of PST
with cognitive tasks differ from those of RST, despite the
1.0
significant correlation among these spans, because studies
of working memory tasks crossing the type of processing
1.0
0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0
and storage indicated that the storage component is more Factor 1
important for the correlation between working memory
Figure 3. Factor loadings for each measure in this experiment.
tasks and cognitive tasks than the processing component Factor 1 (represented on x-axis) can be considered a visuospatial
is (Shah & Miyake, 1996; Turner & Engle, 1989). These factor and Factor 2 (represented on y-axis) can be considered a
points are consistent with the working memory model con- verbal factor. See Table 1 for explanations of abbreviations.
 PICTURE SPAN TEST FOR VISUAL WORKING MEMORY 315

Table 3 difference in SOST [t(22)  1.41, p  .1; see the right

Correlations of Error Values With PST and of Figure 4A] or the paper unfolding test [t(22)  0.94,
Visuospatial Ability Measures
p  .1; see the left of Figure 4B]. Interestingly, as Fig-
Plate Paper Figure ure 4C indicates, the intrusion error rate of low PST was
PST Match Unfold Reconstruct
significantly higher than that of high PST [t(22)  7.54,
Intrusion error .44** .24 .09 .38**
Token error .23 .02 .18 .01
p  .01], but the level of token error did not significantly
**p  .01.
Note—See Table 1 for explanations of abbreviations.
(1996), that there is a dissociation of visuospatial and
verbal working memory resources. It is reasonable to
conclude that PST has a greater validity as a measure of
visual working memory for investigating visual cogni-
tion than do other conventional methods.
Error analysis suggested that avoiding intrusion errors
is critical for PST performance. The mean rate of intrusion
error in total error trials was 0.17 (SD  0.16), and the
mean rate of token error in error trials containing token
choices was 0.76 (SD  0.26). Table 3 summarizes the
correlation between the converted error values and the
performances of tasks; as it indicates, intrusion errors had
significantly negative correlation with the score of PST
and the figure reconstruction test, whereas the token error
value did not. Intrusion errors are considered failures to
inhibit information irrelevant to the task. As has been
suggested in some studies on comprehension and verbal
working memory, inhibition-irrelevant information is also
important in visual working memory.
The examination of individual differences, as illus-
trated by the comparison of scores on other tasks between
high-PST and low-PST groups (see Figure 4), was consis-
tent with the prediction based on results of the correlation
analysis. Since the number of subitems differs on each
psychometric subtest, the analysis used the Z score of the
performance (represented on the y-axis in Figure 4B) of
each subtest. The scores were better in high PST than in
differ [t(22)  1.01, p  .1]. Therefore, the results show
that PST surely reflects individual differences in visual
working memory capacity.
CONCLUSIONS
PST, the newly developed task requiring comprehension
of visual semantics, can be considered a valid measure of
visual working memory capacity. Our research with PST
indicated the importance of inhibition in visual working
memory; so far, this has remained obscure in studies that
used relatively simple stimuli such as colors, shapes, or
objects, rather than highly context-rich measures, such as
those used in PST. Since PST involves comprehension of
visual semantics stored in long-term memory, it is pos-
sible that PST is useful to clarify the interplay of work-
ing memory and long-term memory in the visual domain.
Moreover, the concern with working memory capacity has
been growing in relation to developmental and cognitive
disorders (e.g., Bayliss, Jarrold, Gunn, & Baddeley, 2003;
Rosen, Bergeson, Putnam, Harwell, & Sunderland, 2002).
Our findings suggest the suitability of PST to reflect indi-
vidual differences in visual working memory, as compared
with conventional methods. Thus, PST may be applied to
the proposal for effective assistance in various fields (edu-
cation, medicine, etc.) by exploiting the domain-specific
property of working memory.
AUTHOR NOTE
The present study was supported by Grants #19203032 and #19653082
low PST in RST [t(22)  2.28, p  .05; see the left of Fig- to N.O. from JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science). We
ure 4A], in the plate matching test [t(22)  1.75, p  .1, thank Hiroyuki Tsubomi and Takashi Ikeda for helpful guidance. Cor-
respondence concerning this article should be addressed to A. Tanabe,
significant tendency; see the middle of Figure 4B], and in Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University,
the figure reconstruction test [t(22)  3.78, p  .01; see Yoshida-Honmachi, Sakyo, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan (e-mail: azumi@l05
the right of Figure 4B]. However, there was no significant .mbox.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp).

A B C
*
**
70
5 1.6
**
Error Value

60
Span Score

4 1.2
Z-Score

3 50 0.8
2
40 0.4
1
0 30 0
SOST RST Plate Paper Fig. Intrusion Token
Span Tasks Match Unfold Reconstruct Type of Errors
Visuospatial Measures

p  .1. * p  .05. ** p  .01. High PST Low PST

Figure 4. Comparison of the performance between high PST and low PST. (A) RST and the SOST. (B) Z-scores of the plate matching
test, the paper unfolding test, and the figure reconstruction test. (C) Angular transformation value of intrusion errors and token errors
in PST. Error bars represent standard errors of the mean. See Table 1 for explanations of abbreviations.
316 TANABE AND OSAKA
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 PICTURE SPAN TEST FOR VISUAL WORKING MEMORY 317

APPENDIX A

5 2 5 4

Second PST
3

1 2 3 4 5
First PST
Figure A1. Scatterplot of first picture span test (PST)
and second PST score. A number attached to a dot indi-
cates the number of participants with the same scores.

The following formula is the method of estimating a correcting reliability coefficient for Population A from data
gathered on Population B without the assumption of homogeneity of error variance (Feldt & Brennan, 1989).
(1 Rˆ XX ` )(1 ˆ
21 R XX A` )
Rˆ XX `  1 B
A (1 ˆ
21 R XX B` )

Notation:  ¼XX Œ for reliability coefficient, and 21 ¼XX ŒÅfor Kuder–Richardson formula 21.
In this study, data of the first PST and the second PST were regarded as Populations A and B, respectively. The
reliability coefficient for Population B (second PST) was computed as a Pearson product–moment correlation
coefficient between the first PST and the second PST for populations who were able to take part in the second
PST (r  .46, p  .05).
Kuder–Richardson formula 21 is given below.

21 R XX `   n n 1 §¨©1 M (nnS xM
)¶
·
¸
X
2
X

Notation: n for the number of parts, Ž for mean, and À for SD. In this study, n  2 because of the test–retest
method.

APPENDIX B
The Summary of the Factor Analysis
Factor Loadings
Factor 1 Factor 2
Measure (visuospatial) (verbal)
PST .41 .12
SOST .14 .15
RST .03 .99
Plate match .61 .11
Paper unfold .59 .05
Figure reconstruct .87 .11
Eigenvalue 1.79 1.21
Note—PST, picture span test; SOST, simple object span
test; RST, reading span test; Plate match, the plate match-
ing test; Paper unfold, the paper unfolding test; Figure re-
construct, the figure reconstruction test.

(Manuscript received February 18, 2008;

revision accepted for publication October 27, 2008.)