Spaced cognitive training promotes training transfer.
Open accessAbstract
Cognitive training studies yield wildly inconsistent results. One dimension on which studies vary is the scheduling of training sessions (Morrison and Chein, 2011). In this study, we systematically address whether or not spacing of practice influences training and transfer. We randomly assigned 115 fifth grade children to an active control group or one of four training groups who received working memory training based on a "running span" task (Zhao et al., 2011). All groups received the same total amount of training: 20 sessions of training with 60 trials for an average of 20 min per session. The training was spread across 2, 5, 10, or 20 days. The active control group received 20-min sessions of math instruction for 20 sessions. Before and after training participants in all five groups performed a single transfer test that assessed fluid intelligence, the Raven's Progressive Matrices Test. Overall, participants in all four training groups improved significantly on the training task (at least partially), as reflected by increased speed. More importantly, the only training group to show significant improvement on the Raven's was the group who had the greatest amount of spacing (20 days group) during training and improvement in this group was significantly higher than that of the control group.
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Individuals' improvement during training has been shown to be a relevant predictor of transfer effects in young adults as well as in children and older adults.
“individuals’ improvement during training has been shown to be a relevant predictor of transfer effects in young adults (Jaeggi et al., 2011) as well as in children and older adults (Zinke et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2014).”
From Training on Working Memory and Inhibitory Control in Young Adults (2016) · cites this paper as Wang et al., 2014
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- Authors
- Wang, Z., Zhou, R., & Shah, P.
- Affiliations
- University of Michigan (US)
- Beijing Normal University (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Wang, Zuowei
- Venue
- Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2014-04-10
- Volume
- 8
- Pages
- 217-217
- ISSN
- 1662-5161 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3989588
- OpenAlex
- W1968523640
- Cited by
- 81
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 4
- FWCI
- 17.11
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Cognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skills
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Functions and Memory
- Keywords
- spaced practice, cognitive training, transfer of training, working memory training, fluid intelligence, Raven's Progressive Matrices, children, fifth grade students
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