Li Shu-Chen, Schmiedek Florian, Huxhold Oliver, Röcke Christina, Smith Jacqui, Lindenberger Ulman
Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany.
Psychol Aging. 2008 Dec;23(4):731-42. doi: 10.1037/a0014343.
Adult age differences in cognitive plasticity have been studied less often in working memory than in episodic memory. The authors investigated the effects of extensive working memory practice on performance improvement, transfer, and short-term maintenance of practice gains and transfer effects. Adults age 20-30 years and 70-80 years practiced a spatial working memory task with 2 levels of processing demands across 45 days for about 15 min per day. In both age groups and relative to age-matched, no-contact control groups, we found (a) substantial performance gains on the practiced task, (b) near transfer to a more demanding spatial n-back task and to numerical n-back tasks, and (c) 3-month maintenance of practice gains and near transfer effects, with decrements relative to postpractice performance among older but not younger adults. No evidence was found for far transfer to complex span tasks. The authors discuss neuronal mechanisms underlying adult age differences and similarities in patterns of plasticity and conclude that the potential of deliberate working memory practice as a tool for improving cognition in old age merits further exploration.
与情景记忆相比，工作记忆中成人认知可塑性的年龄差异研究较少。作者研究了广泛的工作记忆练习对绩效提升、迁移以及练习收益和迁移效应的短期维持的影响。20至30岁和70至80岁的成年人进行了一项空间工作记忆任务练习，该任务有两个处理要求水平，持续45天，每天练习约15分钟。在两个年龄组中，相对于年龄匹配的无接触对照组，我们发现：(a) 在练习任务上有显著的绩效提升；(b) 近乎迁移到要求更高的空间n-back任务和数字n-back任务；(c) 练习收益和近乎迁移效应在3个月内得以维持，老年成年人相对于练习后绩效有所下降，而年轻成年人则没有。未发现向复杂广度任务的远迁移证据。作者讨论了成人年龄差异和可塑性模式相似性背后的神经元机制，并得出结论，刻意进行工作记忆练习作为改善老年人认知的一种工具的潜力值得进一步探索。
