Abstract
This study investigated the relationship between working memory components and receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge. The letter span and backward digit span tasks were used as verbal and nonverbal measures of working memory storage component respectively. The verbal and nonverbal executive control components were measured by the reading span and operation span tasks separately. Measures of receptive and productive vocabulary were frequency-based tests. The results suggested that the executive control component plays a more prominent role in vocabulary knowledge (both receptive and productive) compared to the storage component. In addition, the correlation between working memory components and productive vocabulary was stronger than their correlation with receptive vocabulary. The highest correlation was found between the verbal executive control component and productive vocabulary while the lowest one was identified between the nonverbal storage component and receptive vocabulary. The results highlight how each working memory component plays a role in retrieving vocabulary knowledge.