Shinaver Charles S, Entwistle Peter C, Söderqvist Stina
a Clinical Consultant, Pearson Assessment and Intervention , Carmel , Indiana.
Appl Neuropsychol Child. 2014;3(3):163-72. doi: 10.1080/21622965.2013.875314.
Does Cogmed working-memory training (CWMT) work? Independent groups of reviewers have come to what appears to be starkly different conclusions to this question, causing somewhat of a debate within scientific and popular media. Here, various studies, meta-analyses, and reviews of the Cogmed research literature will be considered to provide an overview of our present understanding regarding the effects of CWMT. These will particularly be considered in light of two recent critical reviews published by Melby-Lervåg and Hulme ( 2013 ) and Shipstead, Hicks, and Engle ( 2012 ) and their arguments and conclusions assessed against current available evidence. Importantly we describe how the conclusions drawn by Melby-Lervåg and Hulme appear to contradict their own findings. In fact, the results from their meta-analysis show highly significant effects of working-memory (WM) training on improving visuospatial WM and verbal WM (both ps < .001). In addition, analyses of long-term follow-ups show that effects on visuospatial WM remain significant over time (again at p < .001). Thus, the analyses show that WM is indeed improved using WM training, and the highest effect sizes are achieved using CWMT (compared with other training programs). We also conclude that there is current evidence from several studies using different types of outcome measures that shows attention can be improved following CWMT. In a little more than a decade, there is evidence that suggests that Cogmed has a significant impact upon visual-spatial and verbal WM, and these effects generalize to improved sustained attention up to 6 months. We discuss the evidence for improvements in academic abilities and conclude that although some promising studies are pointing to benefits gained from CWMT, more controlled studies are needed before we can make strong and specific claims on this topic. In conclusion, we find that there is a consensus in showing that WM capacity and attention is improved following CWMT. Due to the importance of WM and attention in everyday functioning, this is, on its own, of great potential value.
Cogmed工作记忆训练（CWMT）有效吗？独立的评审团队对这个问题得出了截然不同的结论，这在科学和大众媒体上引发了一定的争论。在此，我们将审视Cogmed研究文献的各类研究、元分析和综述，以概述我们目前对CWMT效果的理解。尤其会结合Melby-Lervåg和Hulme（2013年）以及Shipstead、Hicks和Engle（2012年）发表的两篇近期批判性综述来进行考量，并根据现有证据评估他们的论点和结论。重要的是，我们描述了Melby-Lervåg和Hulme得出的结论似乎如何与他们自己的研究结果相矛盾。事实上，他们的元分析结果显示，工作记忆（WM）训练对改善视觉空间WM和言语WM具有高度显著的效果（p值均<.001）。此外，长期随访分析表明，对视觉空间WM的影响随时间推移仍然显著（p值再次<.001）。因此，分析表明使用WM训练确实能改善WM，并且使用CWMT（与其他训练项目相比）能达到最高的效应量。我们还得出结论，目前有多项使用不同类型结果测量的研究证据表明，CWMT后注意力可以得到改善。在短短十多年的时间里，有证据表明Cogmed对视觉空间和言语WM有显著影响，并且这些影响能推广到持续注意力的改善，最长可达6个月。我们讨论了学业能力改善的证据，并得出结论，尽管一些有前景的研究指出了CWMT带来的益处，但在我们能够就这个话题做出有力且具体的断言之前，还需要更多对照研究。总之，我们发现有共识表明CWMT后WM能力和注意力得到了改善。由于WM和注意力在日常功能中的重要性，这本身就具有巨大的潜在价值。
