Working memory and skill acquisition: Reply to Halpern.

D. F. Halpern (see record 1991-00321-001) argues that our observations of subjects acquiring a complex problem-solving skill "cannot be used to differentiate between single-workspace and distributed processing models of working memory." In this reply, we attempt to clarify the implications of our results for working memory models, and we discuss the nature of distributed-capacity models of working memory. It is difficult to discriminate the set of possible flexible single-workspace models from distributed models. Our results do disconfirm major assumptions typical of single-workspace models and illustrate the kind of flexibility needed in a model of working memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)