Posts Tagged ‘Working Memory’
Multitasking, many people say, is on the rise. Multitasking is doing two or more things at once. If you watch the news, you can see evidence. Bus drivers sending text messages, and the nearly universal practice of having conversations on the telephone while driving.
A recent study shows that people who habitually multitask actually are worse at switching back and forth between mental tasks than people who don’t. A study reported this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (early edition; August 23, 2009) shows that multitaskers have trouble screening out irrelevant information while performing several tasks. Eyal Ophir and his colleagues at Stanford University used several cognitive tasks including the same n-back task used to in other studies to train working memory.
People who reported the highest use of several media simultaneously (e.g., watching television, surfing the Web, and texting) were more likely to be distracted and performed more poorly on the n-back task.
So what do we make of earlier studies that show that n-back training may improve working memory, fluid intelligence, and even change brain receptors? This may be a case of comparing things that are superficially similar but basically different. Habitual multitasking may lead people to perform more poorly on a variety of tasks, most notably, driving. This habitual multitasking should be distinguished from the working memory training in which the n-back task is used. Working memory training can improve performance, but it may be that constant multitasking does not.
An interesting study is reported in the online version of Discover magazine suggesting that mind wandering is an important part of mental functioning. You can find the article here. Researchers asked people to pay attention to a task while their brain activity was recorded in a special scanner called a functional magnetic resonance imager (fMRI). At intervals they asked the people of they were paying attention to the task. Many people weren’t paying attention and were letting their mind wander. Its’ interesting to know that until they were asked, many of these people didn’t know that their minds were no longer focused on the task.
The researchers went back to the results of the fMRI scans and looked at what the mind wanderers’ brains were doing when they weren’t paying attention. They found that the parts of the brain that were active at those times were related to thinking about yourself and planning for the future. The suggest that the mind has a way of switching back and forth between paying attention in the present and thinking about and planning for the future. So letting your mind wander may have some benefits.
In contrast, an article that appeared earlier this year in the Journal of Experimental Psychology (available here; scroll down to the article titled “Conducting the Train of Thought . . .”) showed that mind wandering was related to poorer working memory functioning. Since working memory function, in general, becomes worse as we get older, this finding presents the possibility that older persons may have the tendency to let their minds wander more than do younger persons.
This would be an explanation for the most common complaint I hear from people about their memory. People tell me “I went in another room to get something and I couldn’t remember what it was.” If your mind wanders in the middle of a task such as finding something, it may give you the impression that your memory isn’t working. It may not be so much your memory itself, but your ability to control whether your mind wanders.
Computer brain training in a brain gym is one way to help improve this ability. Most brain training programs require people to pay attention for extended periods. Both the programs from Posit Science and available on line at Lumosity may train your ability to pay attention. I’m also intrigued by the possibility that coping with stress and improving your mood may help with attention, since both depression and stress have a negative impact on a person’s ability to pay attention. Some types of meditation, too, can help train attention. More studies of all of these interventions are needed to help us figure out whether attention training can help older people improve their everyday memory.
One of the most publicized issues in brain fitness is computer-based training to help you improve your mental functions. Several companies advertise computer software programs to increase brain abilities. Some of these programs are pretty expensive, and when I’ve given talks to consumers I’m often asked whether they’re worth it.
Several studies have shown that computer training can improve mental abilities. It’s not clear that any one program is better than any other. Having worked with a number of these programs, I see some elements in common that I think are likely make them helpful.
Working with computers seems to help people develop sustained attention. When a computer is giving you new tasks like math problems every few seconds, you have to pay close attention for as long as you’re working. Some programs promote sustained attention to what you hear and others do it for what you see. Both modalities may be helpful.
Another cognitive ability that is improved by computer training is processing speed. Processing speed may be a key ability that underlies other mental abilities. We slow down as we age, but training is clearly effective in speeding us up.
One widely-cited study showed that a particular kind of working memory training (dual n-back task) improved performance on a measure of fluid intelligence. Fluid intelligence is the kind that declines most drastically with age, so this finding is especially intriguing.
So if you’re interested in maintaining and improving your brain fitness, it makes sense to spend some time every day in computer-based activities that engage your attention and demand that you think quickly. You can use one of the expensive computer packages, but I think you are likely to get similar effects from less expensive and even free programs. See my computer training page for links to computer training programs, with my comments on each. Click here to go to the computer training page.
A lot of advertising today touts computer software for brain fitness or brain training activities. Some of the software is (relatively) inexpensive, and some costs a fair amount (for example, about $400 for one program). Several websites offer memberships that give you access to stimulating games and other training activities.
How do you decide what software you should use?
First, I think it’s important to remember that nothing has been shown to stop cognitive aging or to prevent Alzheimer’s disease. Brain fitness, a brain gym, or any other cognitive fitness program may help you maintain your current level of function and may improve some specific skills, such as memory and thinking speed. These are important benefits and make brain fitness programs worth considering.
As for the software, as with many things, it depends. Some software programs have been subjected to more rigorous testing than have others. On the other hand, most brain fitness software programs have similar content. They often include activities that try to help you improve your working memory, your ability to think and react quickly, and your capacity to do several things at once. Some software programs have very original ways to improving your ability to do things. Posit Science’s new offering, Cortext, now includes a software program that helps you improve your visual attention to the world around. This program was developed by Dr. Karlene Ball at the University of Alabama, and has been shown to improve older driver’s skills. It’s called the Useful Field of View, or UFOV.
Some activities built in computer brain training software and often used in brain gyms are pretty much the same whether you’re using an inexpensive handheld trainer. Others, like the UFOV, are only available in a specific package. So whether one program or another is best for you may depend on what kind of memory or other cognitive problems you are having trouble with, and what you want to improve.
A recent article in the International Herald Tribune describes some of the available software programs, and some creative ways that some older adults are figuring out how to maintain their function. The author of the article quotes Dr. Gene Cohen, Director of the Center on Aging at George Washington University, who says that what’s essential is some activity to “challenge your brain.” (Click here to see the article.)
One man, for example, reads books upside down to improve his cognitive flexibility. Another man takes opportunities to memorize numbers he sees around him. The author quotes one of the persons in this article as saying “Smart people find new ways to exercise their brains that don’t involve buying software or taking expensive workshops.”
I would say there are three important issues in deciding whether you use brain fitness software or go to a brain gym.
- The first is whether you want an evaluation of your strengths and weaknesses to help you guide your work in the brain gym. A comprehensive assessment also will give you a baseline to help determine whether any of your abilities change over time.
- The second issue is whether you want to benefit from a specific training activity that is only available in a specific software package. Some people think doing the brain puzzles of Sudoku (a game that asks to do mental arithmetic across several parts of a puzzle) is helpful. You can do that in books you can buy at the grocery store, or you can do it in an inexpensive handheld gaming device such as the Nintendo DS. On the other hand, if you want to work on certain visual or auditory skills, some of the software programs may be a better bet.
- The third issue is whether you want the help, encouragement, and support you can get from the staff in a brain fitness program. Just as many people do well in working out in a gym they have in their home, others find that actually going to a health club helps them stick with their program. This may be especially true if you have a personal trainer or are in a group.
It’s a really “hot” topic, and an often-discussed topic: Can cognitive training on computer software help you improve your memory and stave off Alzheimer’s?
I think the answer to the first question may turn out to be at least a partial yes. I think it’s pretty clear that computer-based training can improve your memory. A lot of research has shown that older people can learn new things, just as younger people do. Sometimes the way older people who are taught may have to change, and sometimes older people need a little more help, but older people can learn new things. My colleague, Dr. Sara Czaja at the Center on Aging here at the University of Miami, has shown that older adults can learn how to do diverse jobs such as entering data on a computer or working with a computer to answer customers’ questions about their insurance policies. Another colleague in the Center, Dr. David Loewenstein, has also shown that even people with memory problems can improve their memory.
A large, multi-center (done at several different locations) trial sponsored by the National Institute on Aging showed that certain kinds of cognitive training had significant effects on reasoning, memory, and psychomotor speed. Perhaps most exciting was the demonstration that some of these training effects were still evident after five years. More recently, several of the companies who sell cognitive or brain fitness software for brain gyms have shown that people who use the software may show improvements in memory and other abilities. I think it’s pretty safe to conclude that older adults can benefit from cognitive training.
Will doing the training keep you from getting Alzheimer’s disease, or from getting memory problems if you don’t already have them? That’s really a good question, but as in many cases, there isn’t a very good answer. Just as cognitive reserve (see my post from April 25 for more about cognitive reserve: click here) may mean it takes longer for someone to have recognizable memory problems, cognitive training may work in much the same way. We know that a lot of the people who participate in cognitive training activities feel that they are helpful.
I think computer-based cognitive training may be very useful in helping participants feel that they understand how their mind works and better able to cope with daily challenges to remember things and solve problems. And as far as we know, there are few or no side effects of computer-based training.
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I saw an interesting blog post yesterday evening on the site of the Huffington Post about the potential benefits of meditation – or at least about what one woman thinks might be the benefits. (more…)
Although many people are excited about the potential for using computers to train their brains, we shouldn’t forget that other techniques have been used to the train the brain for many centuries. I’m thinking about the large number of techniques for meditation. While free computer software still requires an investment in a computer, meditation only asks you to sit or lie quietly and focus your mind.
A recently-published study shows parts of the brain in long-term meditators are larger than the same parts of the brain in people who don’t meditate. The article by Eileen Luders and her colleagues appeared in a recent issue of the journal Neuroimage (Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 672-678, April 15, 2009). The study showed that portions of the orbitofrontal cortex and the hippocampus were larger in persons who had been regular meditators for 5 or more years. The study is interesting because the parts of the brain that were larger are often thought to be important in helping people keep themselves emotionally balanced.
A number of strategies are likely to be helpful for meditators. There has been a great deal of interest over the last several years in mindfulness meditation. Researchers have studied how it can be used in reducing anxiety and depression. Mindfulness is based on Buddhist meditation (for a brief article, click here) but you don’t have to be a Buddhist to practice meditation. In fact, one of the most important persons who has promoted mindfulness is Jon Kabat-Zinn, a researcher at the University of Massachusetts. You can see a video presentation by him on YouTube by clicking here.