Individual differences in working memory: Introduction to the special section

This special section includes a set of 5 articles that examine the nature o f inter- and intraindividual differences in working memory, using working m emory span tasks as the main research tools. These span tasks are different from traditional short-term memory spans (e.g., digit or word span) in tha t they require participants to maintain some target memory items (e.g., wor ds) while simultaneously performing some other tasks (e.g., reading sentenc es). In this introduction, a brief discussion of these working memory span tasks and their characteristics is provided first. This is followed by an o verview of 2 major theoretical issues that are addressed by the subsequent articles-(a) the factors influencing the inter- and intraindividual differe nces in working memory performance and (b) the domain generality versus dom ain specificity of working memory-and also of some important issues that mu st be kept in mind when readers try to evaluate the claims regarding these 2 theoretical issues.