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Cited by 10Cognitive Abilities and TestingDevelopmental and Educational NeuropsychologyCognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skills

Training and asymmetrical transfer effects of working memory and inhibitory control in primary school children

Liu, Haoning, Qi, Yue, Zhang, Heyi, Liang, Yongyi, Lu, Lifei, Zhou, Jinrui, Zhang, Tianci, Yu, Xiao·2023·Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
DOI 10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105603
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Abstract

Working memory (WM) and inhibitory control (IC) are two fundamental and supportive components of executive function (EF) that are critical for school-age children. However, the direct comparison of the training and transfer effects of WM and IC training in school-age children still needs to be improved. This study adopted a "pre-, post-, and delayed posttest" design to compare the training, near-transfer, and far-transfer effects of WM and IC in school-age children. A total of 60 children aged 8 to 10 years were randomly assigned to the WM training group, IC training group, or control group. Children in the WM and IC training groups completed 12 sessions of multiple adaptive training tasks tapping different subcomponents of WM (visual-spatial and verbal WM) and IC (interference control and response inhibition) separately. In the pretraining, posttraining, and 6-month follow-up stages, we used WM and IC tasks to evaluate training and near-transfer effects and used analogical reasoning tasks to evaluate far-transfer effects. Results showed significant training effects on visual-spatial and verbal WM, near-transfer effects on response inhibition, and far-transfer effects on analogical reasoning for WM training in the posttraining stage. The improvements in verbal WM and analogical reasoning were maintained for 6 months, whereas for IC training only the training effects on response inhibition and the far-transfer effects on analogical reasoning were observed in the posttraining stage and only the training effects on response inhibition were maintained for 6 months. Results suggested positive training and asymmetrical transfer effects of WM and IC training, which provide new evidence for the effectiveness of WM and IC training in school-age children.

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  • Children and adolescents often show larger or more efficient transfer.

    “Children and adolescents – those undergoing neurocognitive development – often show larger or more efficient transfer (Liu et al., 2023; Zhao et al., 2018)”

    From The asymmetry of working memory training transfer: A systematic review and meta-analysis (2026) · cites this paper as Liu et al., 2023

  • WM training studies have reported directional or asymmetric transfer effects even when tasks are closely matched in similarity.

    “WM training studies have reported directional or asymmetric transfer effects – cases in which training on Task A transfers to Task B, but training on Task B does not comparably transfer back to Task A – even when the two tasks are closely matched in similarity (Liu et al., 2023; Roque-Gutierrez & Ibbotson, 2023).”

    From The asymmetry of working memory training transfer: A systematic review and meta-analysis (2026) · cites this paper as Liu et al., 2023

  • Children and adolescents may have greater transfer potential because their cognitive systems remain under development, and prior meta-analytic findings show stronger cross-domain transfer from WM training in younger populations.

    “This pattern is consistent with evidence that children and adolescents may have greater transfer potential because their cognitive systems remain under development (Liu et al., 2023), as well as with prior meta-analytic findings of stronger cross-domain transfer from WM training in younger populations (Sala et al., 2019b).”

    From The asymmetry of working memory training transfer: A systematic review and meta-analysis (2026) · cites this paper as Liu et al., 2023

  • Differences in cognitive demand across domains are difficult to quantify using conventional behavioral measures, limiting direct tests of the resource-based account.

    “In addition, differences in cognitive demand across domains (e.g., working memory vs. inhibition; Liu et al., 2023) are difficult to quantify using conventional behavioral measures, limiting direct tests of the resource-based account.”

    From The asymmetry of working memory training transfer: A systematic review and meta-analysis (2026) · cites this paper as Liu et al., 2023

  • Working memory updating training, working memory maintenance training, and dual n-back training produced superior improvements on one of two inhibition tests relative to passive controls in healthy children and adults with borderline personality traits (but not healthy adults).

    “A similar pattern has also been found in training studies of healthy children as well as adults with borderline personality traits (but not healthy adults) – in each case, working memory updating training, working memory maintenance (short-term memory) training, and dual n-back training produced superior improvements on one of two inhibition tests relative to passive controls (56–58; cf. 59, 60).”

    From Working memory and inhibitory control deficits in children with ADHD: an experimental evaluation of competing model predictions (2024) · cites this paper as [58]

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Authors
Liu, H., Qi, Y., Zhang, H., Liang, Y., Lu, L., Zhou, J., Zhang, T., & Yu, X.
Affiliations
  • Beijing Forestry University (CN)
  • Beijing Normal University (CN)
Corresponding author
Yu, Xiao
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2023-03
Volume
227
Pages
105603
ISSN
0022-0965 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105603
OpenAlex
W4312083960
Cited by
10
References
76
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 4
FWCI
1.84
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
Locations
  • Journal of Experimental Child Psychology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
Funders
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (BLX202135)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology › Developmental and Educational Neuropsychology
  • Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Cognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skills
Keywords
working memory training, inhibitory control training, executive function, transfer effects, near transfer, far transfer, elementary school students, response inhibition, interference control, analogical reasoning, visuospatial working memory, verbal working memory
MeSH terms
Cognitive Training, Child, Humans, Memory, Short-Term, Problem Solving, Schools, Executive Function

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