Matysiak Olga, Zarzycka Wanda, Bramorska Aleksandra, Brzezicka Aneta
Department of Psychology, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities.
Department of Psychology, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities; Department of Neurosurgery, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center;
J Vis Exp. 2020 Sep 20(163). doi: 10.3791/60804.
The efficacy of cognitive training interventions is recently highly debated. There is no consensus on what kind of training regimen is the most effective. Also, individual characteristics as predictors of training outcome are still being investigated. In this article, we show the attempt to address this issue by examining not only the impact of working memory (WM) training on cognitive effectiveness in older adults but also the influence of the initial WM capacity (WMC) on the training's outcome. We describe in detail how to perform 5 weeks of an adaptive dual n-back training with an active control group (memory quiz). We are focusing here on technical aspects of the training as well as on the initial assessment of participants' WMC. The evaluation of pre and post training performance of other cognitive dimensions was based on the results of tests of memory updating, inhibition, attention shifting, short-term memory (STM) and reasoning. We have found that the initial level of WMC predicts the efficiency of the n-back training intervention. We have also noticed the post training improvement in almost all aspects of cognitive functioning we measured, but those effects were mostly intervention independent.
认知训练干预的效果最近备受争议。对于哪种训练方案最有效尚无共识。此外，作为训练结果预测指标的个体特征仍在研究中。在本文中，我们展示了通过不仅考察工作记忆（WM）训练对老年人认知效能的影响，还考察初始工作记忆容量（WMC）对训练结果的影响来解决这一问题的尝试。我们详细描述了如何对一个活跃对照组（记忆测验）进行为期5周的适应性双n-back训练。我们在此关注训练的技术方面以及参与者WMC的初始评估。对其他认知维度训练前后表现的评估基于记忆更新、抑制、注意力转移、短期记忆（STM）和推理测试的结果。我们发现WMC的初始水平可预测n-back训练干预的效率。我们还注意到在我们测量的认知功能的几乎所有方面训练后都有改善，但这些效果大多与干预无关。
