Basak Chandramallika, O'Connell Margaret A
Center for Vital Longevity, School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson TX, USA.
Front Psychol. 2016 Mar 2;7:230. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00230. eCollection 2016.
It is currently not known what are the best working memory training strategies to offset the age-related declines in fluid cognitive abilities. In this randomized clinical double-blind trial, older adults were randomly assigned to one of two types of working memory training - one group was trained on a predictable memory updating task (PT) and another group was trained on a novel, unpredictable memory updating task (UT). Unpredictable memory updating, compared to predictable, requires greater demands on cognitive control (Basak and Verhaeghen, 2011a). Therefore, the current study allowed us to evaluate the role of cognitive control in working memory training. All participants were assessed on a set of near and far transfer tasks at three different testing sessions - before training, immediately after the training, and 1.5 months after completing the training. Additionally, individual learning rates for a comparison working memory task (performed by both groups) and the trained task were computed. Training on unpredictable memory updating, compared to predictable, significantly enhanced performance on a measure of episodic memory, immediately after the training. Moreover, individuals with faster learning rates showed greater gains in this episodic memory task and another new working memory task; this effect was specific to UT. We propose that the unpredictable memory updating training, compared to predictable memory updating training, may a better strategy to improve selective cognitive abilities in older adults, and future studies could further investigate the role of cognitive control in working memory training.
目前尚不清楚哪些是最佳的工作记忆训练策略，以抵消与年龄相关的流体认知能力下降。在这项随机临床双盲试验中，老年人被随机分配到两种工作记忆训练类型中的一种——一组接受可预测记忆更新任务（PT）训练，另一组接受新颖的、不可预测的记忆更新任务（UT）训练。与可预测的记忆更新相比，不可预测的记忆更新对认知控制的要求更高（巴萨克和韦尔哈亨，2011a）。因此，本研究使我们能够评估认知控制在工作记忆训练中的作用。所有参与者在三个不同的测试阶段——训练前、训练后立即以及完成训练后1.5个月——接受了一系列近迁移和远迁移任务的评估。此外，还计算了比较工作记忆任务（两组都执行）和训练任务的个体学习率。与可预测的记忆更新训练相比，不可预测的记忆更新训练在训练后立即显著提高了情景记忆测量的表现。此外，学习速度较快的个体在这个情景记忆任务和另一个新的工作记忆任务中表现出更大的进步；这种效应特定于UT。我们提出，与可预测的记忆更新训练相比，不可预测的记忆更新训练可能是提高老年人选择性认知能力的更好策略，未来的研究可以进一步探讨认知控制在工作记忆训练中的作用。
