Strategy mediation in working memory training in younger and older adults

Forsberg, Alicia; Fellman, Daniel; Laine, Matti; Johnson, Wendy; Logie, Robert H.

doi:10.1177/1747021820915107

Cited by 35 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 111 publications

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“…In addition to strategy types, we coded the level of detail (LoD) in the open-ended responses (cf. Fellman et al, 2020; Forsberg et al, 2020; Laine et al, 2018; Waris et al, 2021). A detail was defined as either a report of a specific strategy (STR) or of a specific strategy feature (FT).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stimulus novelty, task demands, and strategy use in episodic memory

Waris

Fellman

Jylkkä

et al. 2021

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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Cognitive task performance is a dynamic process that evolves over time, starting from the first encounters with a task. An important aspect of these task dynamics is the employment of strategies to support successful performance and task acquisition. Focusing on episodic memory performance, we: (1) tested two hypotheses on the effects of novelty and task difficulty on strategy use; (2) replicated our previous results regarding strategy use in a novel memory task; and (3) evaluated whether repeated open-ended strategy queries affect task performance and/or strategy use. The present pre-registered online study comprised 161 adult participants who were recruited through the Prolific crowdsourcing platform. We employed two separate 5-block list learning tasks, one with 10 pseudowords and the other with 18 common nouns, and collected recall performance and strategy reports for each block. Using Bayesian linear mixed effects models, the present findings (1) provide some support for the hypothesis that task-initial strategy development is not triggered only by task novelty, but can appear also in a familiar, moderately demanding task; (2) replicate earlier findings from an adaptive working memory task indicating strategy use from the beginning of a task, associations between strategy use and objective task performance, and only modest agreement between open-ended vs. list-based strategy reports; and (3) indicate that repeated open-ended strategy reports do not affect objective recall. We conclude that strategy use is an important aspect of memory performance right from the start of a task, and it undergoes development at the initial stages depending on task characteristics. In a larger perspective, the present results concur with the views of skill learning and adaptivity in cognitive task performance.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stimulus novelty, task demands, and strategy use in episodic memory

Waris

Fellman

Jylkkä

et al. 2021

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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“…Furthermore, serial order encoding of verbal or spatial information in WM is not domain general (Ginsburg et al, 2017, Experiments 1, 2, and 3; Zimmermann et al, 2016). More recently, Forsberg et al (2020) showed that instructing WM trainees with visualization strategies can considerably boost WM training performance in the absence of transfer to structurally different transfer tasks (see also Laine et al, 2018).…”

Section: The Facet Model Of Wmmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gaining a better understanding of how strategy acquisition impacts patterns of transfer requires a task-analytic training procedure that isolates the cognitive processes that are trained and improved (see also Gathercole et al, 2019;Taatgen et al, 2013). So far, few studies have directly ascertained transfer of training with one particular material to other WM tasks with different materials (e.g., Fellman et al, 2020;Linares et al, 2019). For example, Hilbert et al (2017) systematically varied the stimulus content domains using verbal, numerical, and figural materials for training the two WM functions storage and processing and relational integration.…”

Section: Strategy Use In Working Memory Trainingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Limits of near transfer: Content- and operation-specific effects of working memory training.

Himi¹,

Stadler²,

Bastian³

et al. 2023

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Working memory (WM) training typically leads to large performance gains in the practiced tasks, but transfer of these gains to other contexts is elusive. One possible explanation for the inconsistent findings of past research is that transfer may only occur when cognitive strategies acquired during training can also be applied in the transfer tasks. Therefore, we systematically varied the content domains and WM operations assessed by training and transfer tasks and, thereby, the extent to which similar cognitive strategies could be applied. We randomly assigned 171 young adults to one of eight experimental groups who trained one of two WM operations (storage and processing or relational integration) with materials from one of four content domains (verbal, numerical, figuralicon, or figural-pattern) to an active or to a passive control group. Before and after 12 sessions of adaptive training within 2-3 weeks, performance was assessed in all eight WM tasks. Bayesian generalized linear mixed-effects models revealed improved performance in the trained tasks compared to the active control group. However, these improvements did not generalize to tasks measuring the same WM operation with different materials. Moreover, the comparison of the training groups with an active and a passive control group showed considerable differences, thus highlighting the importance of distinguishing between active and passive control groups. Overall, the findings revealed no evidence for transfer between tasks assumed to afford the same strategies. Therefore, the adoption of specific cognitive strategies alone is unlikely to be responsible for transfer of WM training gains between tasks.

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“…According to this view, repeated practice with a new and demanding WM task triggers the spontaneous development of a cognitive skill for performing that particular task. Recent evidence on the importance of task-specific strategies and their evolvement during repeated WM practice (Fellman et al, 2020a;Forsberg et al, 2020;Laine et al, 2018;Malinovitch et al, 2020;Waris et al, 2021a, b) supports the skill learning view, as the selection and application of a suitable strategy represent central components of learning a new cognitive skill (Chein & Schneider, 2012). As repeated practice with a limited set of WM tasks only develops skills to perform those specific tasks and their very closely related untrained variants, the challenge is to try to create training protocols that would be less susceptible to this "curse of specificity" that is characteristic of skill learning.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Pursuit of Effective Working Memory Training: a Pre-registered Randomised Controlled Trial with a Novel Varied Training Protocol

et al. 2021

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Working memory (WM) training, typically entailing repetitive practice with one or two tasks, has mostly yielded only limited task-specific transfer effects. We developed and tested a new WM training approach where the task paradigm, stimulus type, and predictability of the stimulus sequence were constantly altered during the 4-week training period. We expected that this varied training protocol would generate more extensive transfer by facilitating the use of more general strategies that could be applied to a range of WM tasks. Pre-post transfer effects following varied training (VT group, n = 60) were compared against traditional training (TT group, training a single adaptive WM task, n = 63), and active controls (AC, n = 65). As expected, TT evidenced strong task-specific near transfer as compared to AC. In turn, VT exhibited task-specific near transfer only on one of the measures, and only as compared to the TT group. Critically, no evidence for task-general near transfer or far transfer effects was observed. In sum, the present form of VT failed to demonstrate broader transfer. Nevertheless, as VT has met with success in other cognitive domains, future studies should probe if and how it would be possible to design WM training protocols that promote structural learning where common features of specific tasks would be identified and utilised when selecting strategies for novel memory tasks.

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Strategy mediation in working memory training in younger and older adults

Cited by 35 publications

References 111 publications

Stimulus novelty, task demands, and strategy use in episodic memory

Stimulus novelty, task demands, and strategy use in episodic memory

Limits of near transfer: Content- and operation-specific effects of working memory training.

The Pursuit of Effective Working Memory Training: a Pre-registered Randomised Controlled Trial with a Novel Varied Training Protocol

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