School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University.
Psychol Bull. 2019 Jul;145(7):698-733. doi: 10.1037/bul0000196. Epub 2019 Apr 18.
There has been growing interest in enhancing cognition in older adulthood via computerized cognitive training (CCT), though, there is controversy surrounding the efficacy of CCT in promoting improvements to functional everyday activities. As core executive-functions (EFs)-cognitive-flexibility, inhibition, working memory-are applicable to most aspects of daily living, CCT targeting these processes would likely promote gains on trained tasks, and potentially on similar untrained tasks (near-transfer), and general cognitive performance (far-transfer). We report two meta-analyses investigating the immediate (pretest to posttest) and long-term efficacy (pretest to follow-up) of core-EF CCT in improving cognition among older adults. Sixty-four studies (encompassing 3,594 participants) included an eligible CCT intervention targeting at least 1 core-EF (e.g., working memory training). Both immediate and long-term efficacy analyses revealed significant, large training effects for trained outcomes, and significant, small training effects for near-transfer and far-transfer outcomes. When comparing the same studies, effect sizes from immediate and long-term efficacy analyses were comparable, suggesting that CCT gains were maintained over time. Further analyses of immediate efficacy revealed significant, small training effects for performance on executive functioning, fluid intelligence, memory, and visuospatial domains, but not for attention or processing speed. After adjusting for publication bias, the training effect for fluid intelligence was nonsignificant, whereas processing speed was significant. It is recommended that future studies employ adaptive multidomain training as these studies were shown to produce significant training effects at each transfer level. Overall, core-EF CCT interventions show promise in promoting immediate and long-term improvements in cognitive performance among older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
人们对通过计算机认知训练（CCT）来提高老年人的认知能力越来越感兴趣，但关于 CCT 促进改善日常功能活动的功效仍存在争议。由于核心执行功能（EFs）-认知灵活性、抑制、工作记忆-适用于日常生活的大多数方面，因此针对这些过程的 CCT 可能会促进训练任务的提高，并可能促进类似的未训练任务（近迁移）和一般认知表现（远迁移）的提高。我们报告了两项元分析，调查了核心 EF CCT 对改善老年人认知能力的即时（前测到后测）和长期（前测到随访）效果。64 项研究（包括 3594 名参与者）包括针对至少 1 个核心 EF（例如工作记忆训练）的合格 CCT 干预。即时和长期疗效分析都显示出训练效果显著且较大，对近迁移和远迁移效果也显著且较小。在比较相同的研究时，即时和长期疗效分析的效应大小相当，表明 CCT 收益随时间保持。对即时疗效的进一步分析显示，在执行功能、流体智力、记忆和视空间域的表现上，训练效果显著且较小，但在注意力或处理速度上则不显著。在调整出版偏倚后，流体智力的训练效果不再显著，而处理速度则显著。建议未来的研究采用自适应多领域训练，因为这些研究显示在每个转移水平都产生了显著的训练效果。总体而言，核心 EF CCT 干预有望促进老年人认知表现的即时和长期提高。（PsycINFO 数据库记录（c）2019 APA，保留所有权利）。
