Cognitive plasticity of executive control mechanisms: Effects of computerized training, Individual differences, Training/Transfer specificity

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Executive control refers to the ability to intentionally govern behaviours in order to achieve goals in challenging situations in which automatic responses are inappropriate. It plays a crucial role in daily activities such as driving, cooking, and managing our finances and its impairment severely impacts quality of life. Cognitive plasticity is the capacity to acquire or improve cognitive skills. It greatly varies from individual to individual and across the lifespan. Studies on cognitive plasticity for executive control have shown mixed findings on the extent to which it can be enhanced through practice and training. Such knowledge is paramount to better understanding the fundamental principles of cognitive processes and the limits of human cognition and with respect to their developmental adaptation across the lifespan. Studies published so far have resulted in discrepancies in findings, but several limitations prevent definitive interpretation. The existing literature is somewhat limited in that most studies do not embrace the complexity of executive control and focus only on one type of task. It’s been proposed for many years that executive function is not a unitary concept. In fact, studies with patients suffering from neurological damages as well as recent advancements in brain imaging techniques suggest that executive control relies on a subset of distinct attentional control mechanisms such as updating information in memory, inhibiting automatic responses and switching or dividing-attention between concurrent tasks. Moreover, recent findings suggest that some mechanisms decline with age while others could be preserved. Cognitive training studies could help foster understanding of basic attentional control mechanisms. This research project aims at studying patterns of improvement through training across specific executive mechanisms using experimental tasks especially designed to assess training effects on behaviours and associated brain imaging patterns. It is believed that studying individual and age-related differences in plasticity will extend our knowledge about differences and commonalities among attentional control mechanisms and how they can be enhanced and optimized.