Department of Psychology, Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland.
Turku Brain and Mind Center, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2017 Aug;24(4):1077-1096. doi: 10.3758/s13423-016-1217-0.
The efficacy of working memory (WM) training has been a controversial and hotly debated issue during the past years. Despite a large number of training studies and several meta-analyses, the matter has not yet been solved. We conducted a multi-level meta-analysis on the cognitive transfer effects in healthy adults who have been administered WM updating training with n-back tasks, the most common experimental WM training paradigm. Thanks to this methodological approach that has not been employed in previous meta-analyses in this field, we were able to include effect sizes from all relevant tasks used in the original studies. Altogether 203 effect sizes were derived from 33 published, randomized, controlled trials. In contrast to earlier meta-analyses, we separated task-specific transfer (here untrained n-back tasks) from other WM transfer tasks. Two additional cognitive domains of transfer that we analyzed consisted of fluid intelligence (Gf) and cognitive control tasks. A medium-sized transfer effect was observed to untrained n-back tasks. For other WM tasks, Gf, and cognitive control, the effect sizes were of similar size and very small. Moderator analyses showed no effects of age, training dose, training type (single vs. dual), or WM and Gf transfer task contents (verbal vs. visuospatial). We conclude that a substantial part of transfer following WM training with the n-back task is task-specific and discuss the implications of the results to WM training research.
在过去的几年中，工作记忆 (WM) 训练的效果一直是一个有争议且备受争议的问题。尽管进行了大量的训练研究和几项荟萃分析，但这个问题仍未得到解决。我们对使用 n-back 任务（最常见的实验 WM 训练范式）进行 WM 更新训练的健康成年人的认知转移效应进行了多层次荟萃分析。由于采用了以前在该领域的荟萃分析中未使用的方法学方法，我们能够将原始研究中使用的所有相关任务的效应大小包括在内。总共从 33 项已发表的随机对照试验中得出了 203 个效应大小。与早期的荟萃分析相比，我们将特定任务的转移（这里是未训练的 n-back 任务）与其他 WM 转移任务区分开来。我们分析的另外两个认知转移领域包括流体智力 (Gf) 和认知控制任务。观察到对未训练的 n-back 任务的转移效果中等。对于其他 WM 任务、Gf 和认知控制，效应大小相似且非常小。调节分析显示年龄、训练剂量、训练类型（单一与双重）或 WM 和 Gf 转移任务内容（言语与视觉空间）均无影响。我们得出结论，n-back 任务的 WM 训练后的转移有相当一部分是特定于任务的，并讨论了这些结果对 WM 训练研究的意义。
