Au Jacky, Buschkuehl Martin, Duncan Greg J, Jaeggi Susanne M
Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA.
MIND Research Institute, Irvine, CA, USA.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2016 Feb;23(1):331-7. doi: 10.3758/s13423-015-0967-4.
Our recent meta-analysis concluded that training on working memory can improve performance on tests of fluid intelligence (Au et al., Psychon Bull Rev, 22(2), 366-377, 2015). Melby-Lervåg and Hulme (Psychon Bull Rev, doi: 10.3758/s13423-015-0862-z ) challenge this conclusion on the grounds that it did not take into consideration baseline differences on a by-study level and that the effects were primarily driven by purportedly less rigorous studies that did not include active control groups. Their re-analysis shows that accounting for baseline differences produces a statistically significant, but considerably smaller, overall effect size (g = 0.13 vs g = 0.24 in Au et al.), which loses significance after excluding studies without active controls. The present report demonstrates that evidence of impact variation by the active/passive nature of control groups is ambiguous and also reveals important discrepancies between Melby-Lervåg and Hulme's analysis and our original meta-analysis in terms of the coding and organization of data that account for the discrepant effect sizes. We demonstrate that there is in fact no evidence that the type of control group per se moderates the effects of working memory training on measures of fluid intelligence and reaffirm the original conclusions in Au et al., which are robust to multiple methods of calculating effect size, including the one proposed by Melby-Lervåg and Hulme.
我们最近的荟萃分析得出结论，工作记忆训练可以提高流体智力测试的成绩（Au等人，《心理通报与评论》，2015年，22(2)，366 - 377）。Melby - Lervåg和Hulme（《心理通报与评论》，doi: 10.3758/s13423 - 015 - 0862 - z）对这一结论提出质疑，理由是它没有考虑到各研究层面的基线差异，而且这些效应主要是由据称不太严谨的研究驱动的，这些研究没有包括主动对照组。他们的重新分析表明，考虑基线差异会产生一个在统计学上显著但总体效应量小得多的结果（Au等人的研究中g = 0.24，重新分析后g = 0.13），在排除没有主动对照组的研究后，该结果失去了显著性。本报告表明，对照组的主动/被动性质对影响变化的证据并不明确，并且还揭示了Melby - Lervåg和Hulme的分析与我们原来的荟萃分析在数据编码和组织方面的重要差异，这些差异解释了效应量的差异。我们证明，实际上没有证据表明对照组本身的类型会调节工作记忆训练对流体智力测量的影响，并再次肯定了Au等人的原始结论，这些结论对于多种计算效应量的方法都是稳健的，包括Melby - Lervåg和Hulme提出的方法。
