Unpacking placebo and working memory training effects on cognitive performance
Abstract
A fundamental principle of human performance is that it improves with practice (1). There is no doubt that “practice makes perfect” when learning to play the piano, but it also benefits cognitive skills as well, such as improving memory and cognitive control. What is less well understood is whether practice on some tasks, perhaps “brain training” games you can play online, produces gains that transfer to other tasks. It is also unclear what the critical ingredients of practice are. Is it mainly about the amount and quality of practice, or do mindset and motivation also play key roles? Following influential early studies (2), a growing literature suggests that training on working memory (WM) tasks, which challenge the capacity to simultaneously store and manipulate information, can produce sustained benefits on other cognitive control tasks and even perhaps on general fluid intelligence (Gf). Taken at face value, these studies suggest that cognitive training can make one smarter in general and that the key ingredient is practice with specific mental operations. This inference has given rise to a popular wave of commercial brain training products. However, at least two aspects of these studies remain controversial: 1) whether gains transfer to Gf and other cognitive tasks and 2) how much of the effects are attributable to expectations and motivation rather than training per se. In PNAS, Parong et al. (3) address both questions of transfer of learning and expectations in a…
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Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design.
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