Reexamining the relationship between working memory and comprehension: The role of available long-term memory

Two individual differences studies tested relationships between listening comprehension and two conceptualizations of working memory (WM) capacity. Recently, some theorists have stressed that the empirically indicated limits of rehearsal-based WM storage components are inconsistent with the amounts of information needed to accomplish complex cognitive tasks, including language comprehension. Accordingly, they have proposed models of WM that include available long-term memory (ALTM) as part of the cognitive workspace. We tested structural equation models (SEM) depicting relationships among factors representing ALTM, content specific background knowledge, listening comprehension, and conventional WM. The analyses revealed that ALTM mediated the relationships of both WM and background knowledge with listening comprehension. The incongruity posed by small-capacity, attention-controlled WM components and theoretical models of comprehension that depict the integration of text information and background knowledge can, at least in part, be resolved by the models presented here.