LAUSR

The present research studied the role of the non-executive and executive components of working memory in the detection of phonological, orthographical, and grammatical spelling errors. Before performing error detection tasks, undergraduate participants completed a battery of tasks to evaluate their non-executive (verbal and visuospatial storage) and executive (coordination of verbal and visuospatial storage, and processing; strategic retrieval from long-term memory; effortful shifting) functions supporting working memory. The analyses found that phonological errors were better detected than grammatical errors, followed by orthographical errors. Visuospatial storage and coordination of verbal storage and processing were significant predictors of the detection of phonological and orthographical errors. Effortful shifting was a significant predictor only of the detection of orthographical errors, while strategic retrieval from long-term memory was the only predictor of the detection of grammatical errors. Generally, in the verbal domain, the executive component of working memory appeared to be more involved than the non-executive component, whereas in the visuospatial domain, the non-executive component appeared to be more involved than the executive component.