234 A CREATIVE COGNITIONdefi nition of working memory itself remains vague and relations with IQ
or g are still uncertain.
It may seem churlish to object to attempts to describe extremely com-
plex functions by breaking them down into smaller steps or chunks. But
such objections are warranted when strong and infl uential statements
about the ge ne tics of individual diff erences are based on such models
and meta phors.
Th at the latter have their roots in social ideology is clearly demon-
strated in the one- sided, causal, interpretation of correlations. For ex-
ample, little consideration is given to the fact that correlations between
test per for mances can arise from joint association with emotional factors,
such as self- confi dence and motivation in testing situations. Indeed,
Carruthers remarks in an aside that “attention is quite sensitive to
interference, so sustaining a repre sen ta tion in WM [working memory]
for an extended period is by no means easy.”^30
Interpreting score diff erences as defi nitely one thing and not the other
can be dangerous in such circumstances. But much the same can be
said for diff erences on all the other so- called tests of intelligence or
potential— especially when they emerge in social contexts: the subject of
the next chapter and beyond.
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