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

执行控制指的是有意识地控制行为的能力，以便在自动反应不合适的挑战性情况下实现目标。它在日常活动中起着至关重要的作用，如驾驶，烹饪和管理我们的财务，它的损伤严重影响生活质量。认知可塑性是获得或提高认知技能的能力。它在个体之间和整个生命周期中有很大的差异。关于执行控制的认知可塑性的研究表明，通过练习和训练可以在多大程度上提高认知可塑性。这种知识对于更好地理解认知过程的基本原则和人类认知的局限性以及人类认知在整个生命周期中的发展适应性至关重要。 迄今为止发表的研究导致了研究结果的差异，但一些限制因素阻止了明确的解释。现有的文献是有限的，因为大多数研究不包括执行控制的复杂性，只集中在一种类型的任务。执行功能不是一个统一的概念，这一观点已经提出了很多年。事实上，对患有神经损伤的患者的研究以及脑成像技术的最新进展表明，执行控制依赖于不同的注意力控制机制的子集，例如更新记忆中的信息，抑制自动反应以及在并发任务之间切换或分配注意力。此外，最近的研究结果表明，一些机制随着年龄的增长而下降，而另一些则可以保留。认知训练研究可以帮助促进对基本注意力控制机制的理解。该研究项目旨在通过使用专门设计用于评估培训对行为和相关大脑成像模式的影响的实验任务，研究特定执行机制的培训改进模式。人们相信，研究个体和年龄相关的可塑性差异将扩展我们对注意力控制机制之间的差异和共性以及如何增强和优化它们的知识。

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.**