Enhancing Cognitive Abilities with Comprehensive Training: A Large, Online, Randomized, Active-Controlled Trial

Background A variety of studies have demonstrated gains in cognitive ability following cognitive training interventions. However, other studies have not shown such gains, and questions remain regarding the efficacy of specific cognitive training interventions. Cognitive training research often involves programs made up of just one or a few exercises, targeting limited and specific cognitive endpoints. In addition, cognitive training studies typically involve small samples that may be insufficient for reliable measurement of change. Other studies have utilized training periods that were too short to generate reliable gains in cognitive performance. Methods The present study evaluated an online cognitive training program comprised of 49 exercises targeting a variety of cognitive capacities. The cognitive training program was compared to an active control condition in which participants completed crossword puzzles. All participants were recruited, trained, and tested online (N = 4,715 fully evaluable participants). Participants in both groups were instructed to complete one approximately 15-minute session at least 5 days per week for 10 weeks. Results Participants randomly assigned to the treatment group improved significantly more on the primary outcome measure, an aggregate measure of neuropsychological performance, than did the active control group (Cohen’s d effect size = 0.255; 95% confidence interval = [0.198, 0.312]). Treatment participants showed greater improvements than controls on speed of processing, short-term memory, working memory, problem solving, and fluid reasoning assessments. Participants in the treatment group also showed greater improvements on self-reported measures of cognitive functioning, particularly on those items related to concentration compared to the control group (Cohen’s d = 0.249; 95% confidence interval = [0.191, 0.306]). Conclusion Taken together, these results indicate that a varied training program composed of a number of tasks targeted to different cognitive functions can show transfer to a wide range of untrained measures of cognitive performance. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT-02367898

[1]  D. Broadbent,et al.  The Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) and its correlates. , 1982, The British journal of clinical psychology.

[2]  Oxana Palesh,et al.  Cognitive training for improving executive function in chemotherapy-treated breast cancer survivors. , 2013, Clinical breast cancer.

[3]  Booil Jo,et al.  A pilot study of an online cognitive rehabilitation program for executive function skills in children with cancer-related brain injury , 2011, Brain injury.

[4]  M. Metz-Lutz,et al.  Calculation and number processing: assessment battery; role of demographic factors. , 1994, Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology.

[5]  C. S. Green,et al.  Action video game modifies visual selective attention , 2003, Nature.

[6]  E. Altenmüller,et al.  The musician's brain as a model of neuroplasticity , 2002, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[7]  Cindee M. Madison,et al.  Associations between cognitive, functional, and FDG-PET measures of decline in AD and MCI , 2011, Neurobiology of Aging.

[8]  Jagan A. Pillai,et al.  Association of Crossword Puzzle Participation with Memory Decline in Persons Who Develop Dementia , 2011, Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.

[9]  Kristine Yaffe,et al.  A Cognitive Training Program Based on Principles of Brain Plasticity: Results from the Improvement in Memory with Plasticity‐based Adaptive Cognitive Training (IMPACT) Study , 2009, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

[10]  Nicole Fruehauf.  Flow The Psychology Of Optimal Experience , 2016 .

[11]  J. Hunter.  Cognitive ability, cognitive aptitudes, job knowledge, and job performance , 1986 .

[12]  Alan D. Baddeley,et al.  A 3 min reasoning test based on grammatical transformation , 1968 .

[13]  Yvonne Brehmer,et al.  Working-memory training in younger and older adults: training gains, transfer, and maintenance , 2012, Front. Hum. Neurosci..

[14]  Jeffrey J. Evans,et al.  Relations between measures of Cattell‐Horn‐Carroll (CHC) cognitive abilities and mathematics achievement across the school‐age years , 2003 .

[15]  Fredric D. Wolinsky,et al.  A Randomized Controlled Trial of Cognitive Training Using a Visual Speed of Processing Intervention in Middle Aged and Older Adults , 2013, PloS one.

[16]  E. Maguire,et al.  Acquiring “the Knowledge” of London's Layout Drives Structural Brain Changes , 2011, Current Biology.

[17]  Lesley A Ross,et al.  Cognitive Training Decreases Motor Vehicle Collision Involvement of Older Drivers , 2010, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

[18]  S. Ballesteros,et al.  Plasticity of Attentional Functions in Older Adults after Non-Action Video Game Training: A Randomized Controlled Trial , 2014, PloS one.

[19]  H. Forssberg,et al.  Computerized training of working memory in children with ADHD--a randomized, controlled trial. , 2005, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

[20]  Cynthia Owsley,et al.  Timed Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Tasks: Relationship to Cognitive Function and Everyday Performance Assessments in Older Adults , 2002, Gerontology.

[21]  G. Ioannou,et al.  Can Computerized Brain Training Games be Used to Identify Early Cognitive Impairment in Cirrhosis? , 2014, The American Journal of Gastroenterology.

[22]  P. David,et al.  Brain Health Research Study , 2015 .

[23]  Jacob Cohen.  Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences , 1969, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Research Design.

[24]  Thomas S. Redick,et al.  No evidence of intelligence improvement after working memory training: a randomized, placebo-controlled study. , 2013, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[25]  U. Lindenberger,et al.  Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience Aging Neuroscience Hundred Days of Cognitive Training Enhance Broad Cognitive Abilities in Adulthood: Findings from the Cogito Study Materials and Methods Participants and Procedure , 2022 .

[26]  J. Raven.  The Raven's Progressive Matrices: Change and Stability over Culture and Time , 2000, Cognitive Psychology.

[27]  George W Rebok,et al.  Effects of cognitive training interventions with older adults: a randomized controlled trial. , 2002, JAMA.

[28]  Ben Rattray,et al.  Exercise improves reaction time without compromising accuracy in a novel easy-to-administer tablet-based cognitive task. , 2013, Journal of science and medicine in sport.

[29]  Camarin E. Rolle,et al.  Video game training enhances cognitive control in older adults , 2013, Nature.

[30]  Megan M. McClelland,et al.  Relations between Preschool Attention Span-Persistence and Age 25 Educational Outcomes. , 2013, Early childhood research quarterly.

[31]  Peter B. Delahunt,et al.  The Influence of Perceptual Training on Working Memory in Older Adults , 2010, PloS one.

[32]  Susanne M. Jaeggi,et al.  Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory: a meta-analysis , 2008, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.

[33]  R. Yerkes,et al.  The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit‐formation , 1908 .

[34]  M. Csíkszentmihályi.  Flow. The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York (HarperPerennial) 1990. , 1990 .

[35]  Lars Bäckman,et al.  Transfer of Learning After Updating Training Mediated by the Striatum , 2008, Science.

[36]  John O. Willis,et al.  Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale–Fourth Edition , 2014 .

[37]  Jeffrey J. Evans,et al.  The Relations Between Measures of Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) Cognitive Abilities and Reading Achievement During Childhood and Adolescence , 2002 .

[38]  T. Klingberg.  Training and plasticity of working memory , 2010, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[39]  C. S. Green,et al.  Brain plasticity through the life span: learning to learn and action video games. , 2012, Annual review of neuroscience.

[40]  D. Wechsler,et al.  Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale - fourth edition , 2012 .

[41]  David M. Smith,et al.  The ACTIVE cognitive training trial and health-related quality of life: protection that lasts for 5 years. , 2006, The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences.

[42]  F. David,et al.  Statistical Estimates and Transformed Beta-Variables. , 1960 .

[43]  Torsten Schubert,et al.  On methodological standards in training and transfer experiments , 2013, Psychological Research.

[44]  Skye McDonald,et al.  Computerised cognitive training for older persons with mild cognitive impairment: A pilot study using a randomised controlled trial design , 2011 .

[45]  Jessica A. Grahn,et al.  Putting brain training to the test , 2010, Nature.

[46]  P. Lachenbruch.  Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed.) , 1989 .

[47]  Allan L Reiss,et al.  Changes in frontal-parietal activation and math skills performance following adaptive number sense training: Preliminary results from a pilot study , 2011, Neuropsychological rehabilitation.

[48]  B. Milner,et al.  Interhemispheric differences in the localization of psychological processes in man. , 1971, British medical bulletin.

[49]  Kirstie J. Whitaker,et al.  Experience-dependent plasticity in white matter microstructure: reasoning training alters structural connectivity , 2012, Front. Neuroanat..