Cognitive training effects across the adult lifespan: A diffusion modelling approach

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We all experience losses in memory and attention after our mental performance peaked around our 20s. Although this development is quite universal and difficult to reverse, there are ways to slow down losses in mental performance or at least to compensate for these losses. While pharmaceutical products counteracting this development are costly and can be associated with severe side effects, cognitive training is an affordable and easy-to-administer alternative to stay mentally fit. Cognitive training is a program of regular mental activities purported to maintain or improve one's mental abilities. In particular, the introduction of computerised cognitive training has broadened the possibilities, the diversity, and the availability of such training programs to the general audience. The general motivation behind cognitive training is the assumption that human cognitive functioning and the brain are plastic. However, critics asserted that scientific support for training-related plasticity is limited to the practiced tasks while there is no or only minimal benefit for tasks beyond the training context and in everyday life. One exception appears to be training programs that focus on improving processing speed. They usually include tasks in which trainees quickly decide between different choices. The present initiative uses a novel study design combined with an innovative computational approach to systematically investigate the benefits of processing speed training across adulthood.Besides providing robust tests of the promising effects of this type of training on cognitive functioning, this research will tackle an important yet so far unanswered question: How does processing speed training produce benefits? This research will yield important insights into how to maximise the benefits of cognitive training. First, a detailed analysis of performance in the trained tasks will reveal which changes in components of cognitive processing are essential to produce benefits in other contexts. With this knowledge, future training programs can be tailored to boost the relevant components more directly and effectively. Second, our research will determine the optimal level of training task complexity. For instance, processing speed tasks can require only little attention when they are performed in isolation, or they can demand our full attention in multitasking situations. As this may vary with people's age, we will examine the effects in adults ranging from young to old adulthood.The insights from this multi-site initiative with researchers from the UK, Germany, and Canada will allow for developing maximally effective training programs for improving attention, reasoning, and everyday cognitive functioning. With this initiative, we hope to improve our understanding of the human cognitive system, its plasticity, and ways to use this plasticity to compensate for age-related mental losses and enable people to live independently and cognitively healthy for longer.