Digit Span Backwards Summary

The article, “The Digit Span Backwards Task: Verbal and Visual Cognitive Strategies in Working Memory Assessment”, by Hilbert, Sven, Tristan T. Nakagawa, Patricia Puci, Alexandra Zech, and Markus Buhner, aims at investigating the differences in performance between visualizers and verbalizers cognitive strategies by using digit span backwards. The digit span backwards has been used for many decades to assess the working memory capacity. The concept of working memory initiates the way we are able to memorize certain tasks and how we manipulate information into our memory. By using the digit span method, this researcher is able to conduct measurements on short-term memory and utilize it to determine cognitive tasks based on their research. In this article, memory will be tested on two strategies which are verbal and visual. Participants will be asked to memorize numbers, founded on these two strategies. Based on this research, it has been said that, “visualizers tend to make use of internal imagery as a memorization strategy, while verbalizers prefer articulatory techniques, such as inner rehearsal” (Hilbert et al., 2015). Everyone has different strategies that they use to help them memorize certain things and for longer than the short term. Furthermore, this article hypothesized “that performance differences between visualizers and verbalizers, depending on the presentation mode, are observable only in the dual task, due to the prevention of recoding” (Hilbert et al., 2015). As a result, it has been said that the processing memory was based on preferences within the cognitive strategy rather than having others, present it in a different format other than the one that was used. II. The type of research design that was conducted in this article is known as experimental research. This is an experimental research design because the independent variable was manipulated to understand how memory and digit are affected on an individual. The proper definition of independent variable would be a variable this is being manipulated in the experiment. The dependent variable is the variable that causes the independent variable to be manipulated. For example, in this research design, the independent variable of this experiment is the groups that were divided by the verbalizers and visualizers and the dependent variable is working memory. The digit span was used to conduct the study regarding short-term memory. The target population as described in the article was 117 native German-speaking university students, whereas 64 of them were females and 53 were males. The sampling that was used for this experiment is known as precedent. The researcher chose students from one particular population in a university. These participants were told if they were to partake in this study, they would each receive 15 Euros …show more content…
The data collection that was used was with a simultaneous storage and processing test. Also, in the digit span, the data collection that was used is by showing the digits on a computer. In addition, as for the assessment of cognitive strategies, it was measured with a questionnaire. One of the problems that arose regarding the questionnaire was that the researcher used forced-choice questions to categorize participants into verbalizers and visualizers for the analysis. This could be an issue because participants responses could have had been biased, meaning they could just simply say yes to all the questions or no to all the questions without actually focusing on what the questions actually say, which it can also affect the results at the end. An alternative method can be interview, just ask short questions to make sure that the participant was familiarized what the experiment was about and ask opinions on which category they are best at, verbally or …show more content…
The most important findings of the study indicated that cognitive strategy could be the critical factor in the resulting internal processing in which it could be used in future studies regarding working memory processing (Hilbert et al., 2015). The internal validity that was identified is that the subjects could focus just on the memorization task. The DSB needs more clarity because it did not provide all the information that was needed for this experiment. The limitations on external validity were the need to explain the relationship between complex span tasks and the DSB. The strategies that were used to control for extraneous (confounding) variables were by checking for random answering patterns between