The Effects of Mixed Working Memory Training on Subsequent Training Gains Among Older Adults

NCT ID: NCT05672771

Last Updated: 2024-03-28

Study Results

Results available

Outcome measurements, participant flow, baseline characteristics, and adverse events have been published for this study.

View full results

Basic Information

Get a concise snapshot of the trial, including recruitment status, study phase, enrollment targets, and key timeline milestones.

Recruitment Status

COMPLETED

Clinical Phase

NA

Total Enrollment

90 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2020-08-26

Study Completion Date

2022-01-30

Brief Summary

Review the sponsor-provided synopsis that highlights what the study is about and why it is being conducted.

While an intellectually active and socially integrated lifestyle shows promise for promoting cognitive resilience, the mechanisms underlying any such effects are not well understood. The aim of the current project is test the implications of the "mutualism" hypothesis, which suggests that intellectual function emerges out of the reciprocal influence of growth in abilities as they are exercised in the ecology of everyday life. Such a view implies that improvement in one component will enhance the modifiability of a related component. An additional aim was to test the idea that mutualistic effects will be enhanced by more diverse training in related skills, such as interleaved training of multiple skills, relative to single-component training.

A "successive-enrichment" paradigm was developed to test this with working memory (WM) as the target for training given its centrality in models of attention, intellectual function, and everyday capacities such as reasoning and language comprehension. All participants receive the same target training, but the nature of the training that precedes it is manipulated. Outcome measures include pre- to posttest gains in working memory and episodic memory, as well as the rate of gain in learning the target task. The principle of enhanced mutualism would predict that more diverse experiences related to the target skill will enhance efficiency in acquiring the target skill.

Detailed Description

Dive into the extended narrative that explains the scientific background, objectives, and procedures in greater depth.

Within conventional assessments of transfer that examine the effects of training on measures of function at a single time point, these ideas has not been tested. In this project, a "successive-enrichment" paradigm was used to examine improvement in cognitive skills as a function of different conditions for earlier training. The target for training is working memory (WM) given its centrality in models of attention, intellectual function, and everyday capacities such as reasoning and language comprehension.

In the successive-enrichment paradigm, all participants receive the same target training, but the nature of the training that precedes it is manipulated. Thus, in Phase 2, all participants are trained for 10 days on the reading span task (RdgS), in which the task is to verify sensibility in a set of sentences and retain in memory an alphabetic character presented after each sentence. The set size adapts to the participant's skill (in both accuracy of sensibility decisions and memory for the letter set). In Phase 1, participants are randomly assigned to one of four groups designed to test the assumption that related and diverse experiences with the target skill differentially enhance the rate of learning the new skill. In the Same Task (ST) control, participants train on the RdgS, and were expected to be at ceiling in Phase 2. In the Different Single condition (DS), participants trained on a WM task different from that in Phase 1 (the lexical decision span). In the Different Mixed (DM) condition, participants trained on two different interleaved WM tasks, the lexical decision span and the category span. In the non-WM Placebo Control (PC), participants train on a speeded lexical decision task (matched in materials and verbal decision component to the lexical decision span the but requiring no simultaneous memory.

Outcome measures include pre- to posttest gains in working memory and episodic memory, as well as the rate of gain in learning the RdgS in Phase 2. The PC and ST controls define the lower and upper limits of performance, respectively. The principle of enhanced mutualism would predict that the DM group will show more efficient learning of the RdgS in Phase 2 than the DS group, which will both show more efficient learning than the PC group.

Conditions

See the medical conditions and disease areas that this research is targeting or investigating.

Cognitive Aging

Study Design

Understand how the trial is structured, including allocation methods, masking strategies, primary purpose, and other design elements.

Allocation Method

RANDOMIZED

Intervention Model

FACTORIAL

Primary Study Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Blinding Strategy

SINGLE

Participants

Study Groups

Review each arm or cohort in the study, along with the interventions and objectives associated with them.

Different Mixed Condition (DM)

Training in both Lexical Decision Span and Category Span in Phase 1 (which are both different from the target task Reading Span in Phase 2).

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

Different Mixed Condition (DM)

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Participants engage in home-based training on two working memory tasks, both different from those in the target task training. Goal is 10 days of training, with 4 8-min blocks of training each day.

Different Single Condition (DS)

Training in the Lexical Decision Span in Phase 1 (which is different from the target task Reading Span in Phase 2).

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

Different Single Condition (DS)

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Participants engage in home-based training on a working memory task that is different from that in the target task training. Goal is 10 days of training, with 4 8-min blocks of training each day.

Same Task (ST) Practice Control

Training in Reading Span task in Phase 1 (which is the same as target task in Phase 2).

Group Type ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

Same Task (ST) Practice Control

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Participants engage in home-based training on the exact same working memory tasks as that in the target task training. Goal is 10 days of training, with 4 8-min blocks of training each day.

Non-WM Placebo Control (PC)

Training in a speeded Lexical Decision task only (which has no memory component) in Phase 1 prior to Phase 2 training in WM.

Group Type PLACEBO_COMPARATOR

Non-WM Placebo Control (PC)

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Participants engage in home-based training on speeded verbal decision, which unlike the target task training, has no memory component. Goal is 10 days of training, with 4 8-min blocks of training each day.

Interventions

Learn about the drugs, procedures, or behavioral strategies being tested and how they are applied within this trial.

Different Mixed Condition (DM)

Participants engage in home-based training on two working memory tasks, both different from those in the target task training. Goal is 10 days of training, with 4 8-min blocks of training each day.

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Different Single Condition (DS)

Participants engage in home-based training on a working memory task that is different from that in the target task training. Goal is 10 days of training, with 4 8-min blocks of training each day.

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Same Task (ST) Practice Control

Participants engage in home-based training on the exact same working memory tasks as that in the target task training. Goal is 10 days of training, with 4 8-min blocks of training each day.

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Non-WM Placebo Control (PC)

Participants engage in home-based training on speeded verbal decision, which unlike the target task training, has no memory component. Goal is 10 days of training, with 4 8-min blocks of training each day.

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Check the participation requirements, including inclusion and exclusion rules, age limits, and whether healthy volunteers are accepted.

Inclusion Criteria

* Native English speakers or acquisition of English before age 6 yrs old
* Self-report of hearing ability sufficient to engage with lab personnel
* No stroke in the last 3 years
* No current cancer treatment involving radiation or chemotherapy - No self-reported learning disability
* No self-reported psychiatric disorder
* Willingness to be randomly assigned to training conditions
* No plans that would limit participation during the activity period
* No participation in a cognitive intervention program in the last year
Minimum Eligible Age

60 Years

Maximum Eligible Age

90 Years

Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Sponsors

Meet the organizations funding or collaborating on the study and learn about their roles.

National Institute on Aging (NIA)

NIH

Sponsor Role collaborator

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

OTHER

Sponsor Role lead

Responsible Party

Identify the individual or organization who holds primary responsibility for the study information submitted to regulators.

Elizabeth A L Stine-Morrow

Professor Emerita

Responsibility Role PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Learn about the lead researchers overseeing the trial and their institutional affiliations.

Elizabeth A L Stine-Morrow, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

University of Illinois at Chicago

Locations

Explore where the study is taking place and check the recruitment status at each participating site.

Beckman Institute

Urbana, Illinois, United States

Site Status

Countries

Review the countries where the study has at least one active or historical site.

United States

References

Explore related publications, articles, or registry entries linked to this study.

Stine-Morrow EAL, Payne BR, Roberts BW, Kramer AF, Morrow DG, Payne L, Hill PL, Jackson JJ, Gao X, Noh SR, Janke MC, Parisi JM. Training versus engagement as paths to cognitive enrichment with aging. Psychol Aging. 2014 Dec;29(4):891-906. doi: 10.1037/a0038244. Epub 2014 Nov 17.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 25402337 (View on PubMed)

Payne BR, Stine-Morrow EAL. The Effects of Home-Based Cognitive Training on Verbal Working Memory and Language Comprehension in Older Adulthood. Front Aging Neurosci. 2017 Aug 8;9:256. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2017.00256. eCollection 2017.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 28848421 (View on PubMed)

Savi AO, Marsman M, van der Maas HLJ, Maris GKJ. The Wiring of Intelligence. Perspect Psychol Sci. 2019 Nov;14(6):1034-1061. doi: 10.1177/1745691619866447. Epub 2019 Oct 24.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 31647746 (View on PubMed)

van der Maas HL, Dolan CV, Grasman RP, Wicherts JM, Huizenga HM, Raijmakers ME. A dynamical model of general intelligence: the positive manifold of intelligence by mutualism. Psychol Rev. 2006 Oct;113(4):842-61. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.113.4.842.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 17014305 (View on PubMed)

Van Der Maas HLJ, Kan KJ, Marsman M, Stevenson CE. Network Models for Cognitive Development and Intelligence. J Intell. 2017 Apr 20;5(2):16. doi: 10.3390/jintelligence5020016.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 31162407 (View on PubMed)

Daneman M, Merikle PM. Working memory and language comprehension: A meta-analysis. Psychon Bull Rev. 1996 Dec;3(4):422-33. doi: 10.3758/BF03214546.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 24213976 (View on PubMed)

Stine-Morrow, E. A. L., & Manavbasi, I. (2022). Beyond "Use It or Lose It": The impact of engagement on cognitive aging. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, 4, 319-352.

Reference Type BACKGROUND

Brown, P. C., Roediger, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning. Harvard University Press.

Reference Type BACKGROUND

Engle RW, Tuholski SW, Laughlin JE, Conway ARA. Working memory, short-term memory, and general fluid intelligence: a latent-variable approach. J Exp Psychol Gen. 1999 Sep;128(3):309-331. doi: 10.1037//0096-3445.128.3.309.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 10513398 (View on PubMed)

Conway AR, Kane MJ, Bunting MF, Hambrick DZ, Wilhelm O, Engle RW. Working memory span tasks: A methodological review and user's guide. Psychon Bull Rev. 2005 Oct;12(5):769-86. doi: 10.3758/bf03196772.

Reference Type RESULT
PMID: 16523997 (View on PubMed)

Provided Documents

Download supplemental materials such as informed consent forms, study protocols, or participant manuals.

Document Type: Study Protocol, Statistical Analysis Plan, and Informed Consent Form

View Document

Other Identifiers

Review additional registry numbers or institutional identifiers associated with this trial.

R56AG058708

Identifier Type: NIH

Identifier Source: secondary_id

View Link

Mixed Working Memory Training

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id

More Related Trials

Additional clinical trials that may be relevant based on similarity analysis.

Cognitive-Motor Training for AD/ADRD Prevention
NCT07160582 NOT_YET_RECRUITING NA