Between-person variation in naturally occurring affect does not relate to working memory performance: a latent variable modelling study

Some studies have shown that induced positive and negative affective states have differential effects on verbal and spatial working memory (WM) performance, such that positive affect improves verbal WM and impairs spatial WM, while negative affect improves spatial WM and impairs verbal WM. However, other evidence based on mood induction procedures or clinical levels of negative affect has supported a nonspecific influence of affect on WM performance where negative affect impairs, and positive affect improves, both verbal and spatial WM. The present study employed a latent variable approach to investigate whether differences in naturally occurring affect between individuals are related to verbal and spatial WM performance across six WM tasks in an unselected sample of undergraduate students ( N = 112, M age = 20; 84% female). Results were consistent with previous evidence demonstrating a hierarchical model of WM. Naturally occurring positive and negative affect were not significantly related to WM performance on each task, and this lack of significant association held for the overall WM latent variable, verbal and spatial WM latent variables, as well as complex span and 2-back latent variables. In contrast to research demonstrating a relationship between induced affect or clinical levels of negative affect and WM, the non-significant relationship between naturally occurring affect and WM performance in the current nonclinical unselected sample suggests that typical levels of affect are not related to WM differences across individuals.