Table 1. A Summary of Factors That Influence WM.

Factors	Acute vs Chronic effect	Malleability Low/Med/High	Mechanism/Presumed cause of effect	Consistency/ Inconsistency in literature
Individual Differences
Intelligence	C	L	Biological	C
Gender	C	L	Biological	I
Age	C	L	Biological	C
Personality	C	L	Biological	I
Mental illness / Medical conditions	C	M	Preoccupying thoughts/Biological	C
Manipulated
Emotion	A	M	Preoccupying thoughts	C
Stress/Anxiety	A	M	Preoccupying thoughts	C
Dieting	A/Cb	H	Preoccupying thoughts	C
Craving	A	H	Preoccupying thoughts	I
Stereotype threat	A	H	Preoccupying thoughts	C
Temperature	A	H	Preoccupying thoughts/Biological	Insufficient
Mindfulness	Uncertain	H	Preoccupying thought control	Insufficient
Practice	Uncertain	H	Uncertain	I
Sleep	A	H	Uncertain	C
Bilingualism	C	M	Uncertain	C
Musical training	C	M	Uncertain	Insufficient
Altitude/Hypoxia	A/C*	H	Biological	Insufficient
Exercise	A/C*	H	Biological	I
Diet	A/C*	H	Biological	Insufficient
Drug Use	A/C*	H	Biological	C
Brain stimulation	A	H	Biological	C

^aMay be either an acute or chronic effect, depending on circumstances.