Department of Psychology, Experimental Neuropsychology Unit, Saarland University, 66123 Saarbrücken, Germany.
Cereb Cortex. 2011 Nov;21(11):2555-64. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhr037. Epub 2011 Apr 6.
Working memory training is a useful tool to examine dissociations between specific working memory processes. Although current models propose a distinction between modality-specific working memory processes, to our knowledge no study has directly examined the effects of visual versus auditory working memory training. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to investigate whether visual working memory processes can be trained specifically and whether those effects can be separated from across-modal training effects. We found decidedly larger training gains after visual working memory training compared with auditory or no training on a visual 2-back task. These effects were accompanied by specific training-related decreases in the right middle frontal gyrus arising from visual training only. Likewise, visual and auditory training led to decreased activations in the superior portion of the right middle frontal gyrus and the right posterior parietal lobule. We infer that the combination of effects resulted from increased neural efficiency of intra-modal (visual) processes on the one hand and of across-modal (general control) processes on the other hand. Therefore, visual processes of working memory can be trained specifically, and these effects can be functionally dissociated from alterations in general control processes common to both working memory trainings.
工作记忆训练是一种有用的工具，可以检查特定工作记忆过程之间的分离。尽管目前的模型提出了区分特定于模态的工作记忆过程的建议，但据我们所知，尚无研究直接检查视觉与听觉工作记忆训练的效果。功能磁共振成像被用来研究视觉工作记忆过程是否可以被专门训练，以及这些效果是否可以与跨模态训练效果分开。我们发现，与听觉或无训练相比，在视觉 2 背任务中，经过视觉工作记忆训练后，训练增益明显更大。这些效果伴随着来自视觉训练的仅右中额回的特定训练相关的减少。同样，视觉和听觉训练导致右中额回上部和右后顶叶回的激活减少。我们推断，这些效果的组合是由于一方面模态内（视觉）过程的神经效率增加，另一方面跨模态（一般控制）过程的神经效率增加所致。因此，工作记忆的视觉过程可以被专门训练，这些效果可以从两种工作记忆训练中常见的一般控制过程的改变中在功能上分离出来。
