Training Working Memory for 100 Days

Abstract

This chapter is based on a theoretical framework for the study of adult cognitive plasticity and on empirical findings from the COGITO Study. The design and analyses of the study include key features for producing and detecting transfer effects at the level of cognitive abilities. Among the features are: (a) an intensity and dosage of training that is likely to induce an enduring mismatch between functional supply and demand, which is conducive to plastic changes in cognitive abilities, and (b) a multivariate and heterogeneous battery of transfer tasks and sufficiently large samples to allow for the investigation of transfer of training at the level of latent factors. Younger adults showed short-term and long-term transfer effects for reasoning and episodic memory, whereas older adults showed only short-term transfer on a working memory (WM) latent factor composed of tasks that resembled the practiced tasks, something that younger adults did as well. The chapter discusses possible interpretations of the findings in terms of increases in WM capacity, improvements in the efficiency of material-independent or material-specific processes or strategies, and improvements in motivation and self-concept.