Benefits of Training Visuospatial Working Memory inYoungOld and OldOld

Erika Borella, Barbara Carretti, Alessandra Cantarella, Francesco Riboldi, Michela Zavagnin,and Rossana De Beni

University of Padova

The purpose of the present study was to test the efficacy of a visuospatial working memory (WM)training in terms of its transfer effects and maintenance effects, in the youngold and oldold. Fortyyoungold and 40 oldold adults took part in the study. Twenty participants in each age group receivedtraining with a visuospatial WM task, whereas the others served as active controls and completedalternative activities. Training benefits were examined, considering (a) the specific training-related gainsin a visuospatial WM task (criterion); and (b) the transfer effects on measures of verbal WM, visuospatialshort-term memory, inhibition, processing speed, and reasoning. Maintenance of training benefits wasalso assessed after 8 months. Results showed that the trained groups (both youngold and oldold), butnot the control groups, performed better in the WM measures and preserved these gains after 8 months.Some transfer effects were found, but only in the youngold-trained participants, and they were notmaintained at the follow-up. These results are discussed in terms of the efficacy of WM training for olderadults when a visuospatial modality is used.

Keywords: working memory training, aging, transfer and maintenance effects

The crucial role of working memory (WM; i.e., the ability toprocess and retain information temporarily for use in other cogni-tive tasks; Miyake & Shah, 1999) in explaining individual andage-related differences in cognitive performance is well docu-mented. Given the involvement of WM in everyday activities,aging research is now focusing on whether WM training benefits(a) can improve WM performance; (b) can be generalized tountrained tasks (transfer effects); and, most importantly, (c) aremaintained in time.

Where studies have documented that older adults benefited fromWM training in a criterion task (i.e., the task in which participantswere trained), the benefits were very limited in terms of anytransfer effects, and they were generally not maintained over time(see Borella, Carretti, Zanoni, Zavagnin, & De Beni, 2013; Melby-Lervg & Hulme, 2013). In contrast with said results, Borella,Carretti, Riboldi, and De Beni (2010) provided verbal WM train-ing for older adults and found specific training gains, as well asboth near and far transfer effects, and the benefits of training weremaintained at 8-month follow-up. Their results, in terms of short-term and maintenance training benefits, were also recently con-firmed in other studies using the same procedure as Borella et al.

(2010), both in normal aging (Borella et al., 2013; Carretti,Borella, Zavagnin, & De Beni, 2013) and in patients with amnesticmild cognitive impairment (Carretti, Borella, Fostinelli, & Zav-agnin, 2013). Though it is not yet clear which variables are crucialin favoring WM training-related gains in older adults (e.g., Mor-rison & Chein, 2011), Borella et al. suggested that their encour-aging results were related to the following aspects: (a) the trainingprocedure and (b) the participants age range.

Concerning the first point, unlike other WM training studies,Borella et al. (2010) used a procedure that combined an adaptiveprocedure (the difficulty of the training task was increased ifparticipants were successful at a given level; if not, the lowest levelwas presented) with a constant variation in the maintenance andprocessing requirements of the trained task (to avoid practiceeffects). This training regimen may consequently produce gener-alized effects on untrained tasks, because it combines the involve-ment of multiple cognitive processes (i.e., attentional control andshifting) with an adaptive procedure (which enables participants tobe trained at a level of difficulty coming close to the limits of theircapacity). Because the requirements of the training task are alwaysnovel and challenging, participants maintain their interest in theactivities, and their cognitive flexibility is stimulated. The trainingschedule, with sessions arranged at fixed intervals, may be anotherfeature that made the training more successful because it leftparticipants sufficient time to consolidate the skills they acquiredwhile, at the same time, it reduced the risk of their losing anybeneficial effects of having practiced with the task (e.g., Cepeda,Pashler, Vul, Wixted, & Rohrer, 2006).

As for the second point (the participants age range), to dateonly the studies by Borella et al. (2010) and Brehmer, Westerberg,and Bckman (2012) have considered WM training for participantswith ages in the range of 6575 in the former case, and 6070 in

This article was published Online First September 23, 2013.Erika Borella, Barbara Carretti, Alessandra Cantarella, Francesco Ri-

boldi, Michela Zavagnin, and Rossana De Beni, Department of GeneralPsychology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.

The study was partially supported by University of Padova GrantCPDA087750/08, awarded to Barbara Carretti.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to ErikaBorella or Barbara Carretti, Department of General Psychology, Universityof Padova, Via Venezia, 8, 35131 Padova, Italy. E-mail: erika.borella@unipd.it or barbara.carretti@unipd.it

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Developmental Psychology 2013 American Psychological Association2014, Vol. 50, No. 3, 714727 0012-1649/14/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0034293

714

the latter, that is, the so-called youngold (e.g., Baltes & Smith,2003; Magaziner, 1989). Both studies showed specific gains in thetrained task with transfer gains to different cognitive processes/mechanisms. Brehmer et al. (2012) found transfer effects on sus-tained attention, short-term memory, and on a measure of cogni-tive functioning (self-rating scale), but not on interference control,reasoning, or episodic memory. In the study by Borella et al.(2010), however, verbal WM training produced transfer effects onvisuospatial WM, verbal short-term memory, processing speed,inhibition, and fluid intelligence.

Apart from the above two exceptions, all other WM trainingstudies focused on oldold (individuals over 75; Buschkuehl et al.,2008; Zinke, Zeintl, Eschen, Herzog, & Kliegel, 2012), or on abroad age range (both youngold and oldold; Richmond, Mor-rison, Chein, & Olson, 2011). Indeed, the few studies examiningtransfer effects in oldold participants found transfer effects mainlyfor tasks similar to those used in the training, and less so for differenttasks (e.g., Borella et al., 2013; Buschkuehl et al., 2008; Zinke et al.,2012). Borella et al. (2013) focused on the potential role of age indetermining the success of training, applying the Borella et al. (2010)training procedure to the oldold. Their results show that there isroom for improvement in WM performance even in advanced oldage: The oldolds performance improved in the criterion task (verbalWM task), and this improvement was also maintained in time (at 8months), but transfer effects (regarding some aspects of inhibitorycontrol) were more limited than those seen in the youngold.

The main aims of the present study were therefore twofold.First, we wanted to establish the efficacy of the Borella et al.(2010) WM training (given its promising results) using a visuospa-tial WM training tasks. It is noteworthy that, among the few WMtraining studies in aging, which identified few or no transfereffects, the training task was either spatial (Li et al., 2008) or visual(Buschkuehl et al., 2008), or combinations of verbal and visuospa-tial (Richmond et al., 2011; Zinke et al., 2012) WM tasks. Inaddition, the results that emerged were irrespective of whether thetraining procedure used was adaptive (Buschkuehl et al., 2008;Richmond et al., 2011; Schmiedek, Lvdn, & Lindenberger,2010; Zincke et al., 2012) or one that required practice (Li et al.,2008) with the training task. Hence, our choice of a visuospatialWM task with processing requirements were similar to those of theverbal WM task used by Borella et al. (2010) (see Carretti, Mam-marella, & Borella, 2012). Our second aim was to examine thetraining-related benefits both in 64- to 75-year-olds (i.e., the so-called youngold) and in 76- to 84-year-olds (i.e., the oldold).

Transfer effects were examined for tasks theoretically related toWM and were classified along a continuum from nearest to far-thest transfer tasks (see Borella et al., 2010), following suggestionsfrom Noack, Lvdn, Schmiedek, and Lindenberger (2009). Averbal WM task (the Categorization Working Memory Span[CWMS] task) was used to assess nearest transfer effects becauseit measured WM, but using a different task content from thetraining task. The forward and backward Corsi span tests, bothusually considered as measures of visuospatial short-term memory(e.g., Cornoldi & Mammarella, 2008), were used to assess neartransfer effects because they reveal the relationship between short-term visuospatial memory and WM (e.g., Miyake, Friedman, Ret-tinger, Shah, & Hegarty, 2001). Tasks assessing reasoning ability(the Cattell test), processing speed (the pattern comparison task),and inhibition (the Stroop color task) were used to measure far

transfer effects because these mechanisms have been shown tocorrelate with, or explain, the age-related decline in WM.

Consistently with the literature, we expected to see specifictraining benefits in the criterion task as well as their maintenancein the trained groups, irrespective of their age, by comparison withthe active control groups (see Melby-Lervg & Hulme, 2013).

Concerning the transfer effects, we expected to find the sametransfer effects, and maintenance effects, as were seen after ad-ministering the verbal WM training by Borella et al. (2010) toyoungold. We hypothesized, however, that the gains would beless broad because of the greater age-related memory decline invisuospatial than in verbal tasks (Bopp & Verhaeghen, 2007;Jenkins, Myerson, Joerding, & Hale, 2000; Myerson, Emery,White, & Hale, 2003). In this sense, if the training task modality hasa crucial role, then transfer and maintenance effects should be lessobvious or lacking, consistently with other WM training studies usingnonverbal material.

For oldold adults, also in the light of the results obtained withthe oldold by Borella et al. (2013) (see also Buschkuehl et al.,2008; Zinke et al., 2012), limited transfer effects were expectedbecause of the decline in flexibility with aging (Schmiedek et al.,2010), and any benefits of training were expected to be influencedby age, with greater gains in the youngold than in the oldold(e.g., Borella et al., 2013).

Method

Participants

Forty youngold (age 6575 years) and 40 oldold adults (age7684) took part in the study. Twenty participants from each agegroup were randomly assigned to receive training, whereas the other20 in each age group formed a control group.1 All participants werehealthy, native Italian speakers who lived independently, and whovolunteered for the study. They were selected on the basis of aphysical and psychological health questionnaire. Exclusion criteriawere as follows: Use of benzodiazepines in the previous 3 months;visual, auditory, and/or motor impairments; problems or diseasespotentially causing cognitive impairments (Crook et al., 1986); a scorebelow the age- and education-matched norms in the Wechsler AdultIntelligence ScaleRevised (WAISR; Wechsler, 1981) vocabularytestcrystallized intelligence measure (Italian norms by Orsini &Laicardi, 2003); a cognitive dysfunction such as mild cognitive im-pairment or Alzheimers disease. Participants were screened for cog-nitive impairments using the short version of the Italian Checklist forthe Multidimensional Assessment (SVAMA) of the elderly used inthe Veneto region (Gallina et al., 2006).

Moreover, all participants performed above the cutoff for theirage and education in the CWMS task (see Italian norms, De Beni,Borella, Carretti, Marigo, & Nava, 2008).

Within each age group, the participants in the trained and activecontrol groups responded correctly to the 10 items of the SVAMA,

1 After a plenary session where the elderly adults were told about the twodifferent programs, both involving memory, the 40 youngold and 40oldold volunteers were randomly assigned to two groups, 20 (for each agegroup) to receive training and the other 20 (for each age group) to form thecontrol group.

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715VISUOSPATIAL WORKING MEMORY TRAINING

indicating a good cognitive functioning.2 One-way analyses ofvariance (ANOVAs) demonstrated that they did not differ in age,years of formal education, or WAISR vocabulary score (all Fs 1) (see Table 1).

MaterialsCriterion task: The matrix task (adapted from Carretti et

al., 2012; Cornoldi, Bassani, Berto, & Mammarella, 2007).The material consisted of 60 4 4 matrices (black lines against awhite background; see Figure 1). Series of matrices were presentedin increasingly long sets from two to six. In each series, three blackdots appeared in different positions in the matrix one after theother for 1,000 ms, separated by an empty matrix appearing for500 ms. At the end of each series, a gray screen appeared for 500ms. Participants had to recall the position of the last dot they hadseen in the series of matrices (maintenance phase). In each series,one row and one column were always shaded in gray, and partic-ipants had to press the space bar when the dot they saw occupieda gray cell (processing phase). A random procedure was used todecide which row and column to shade gray in a given set. Whena set ended, participants were shown a screen with an emptymatrix, and the experimenter asked them to use a mouse to indicatethe positions of the last dots (from two to six) seen in each of thesets of matrices presented in the series. This empty matrix re-mained on the screen until the positions had been chosen. The startof a new series was marked by the presentation of a fixation point.Two trials were completed before the experiment began.

The total number of correctly recalled dot positions was considered themeasure of the participants WM capacity (maximum score 60).

Nearest transfer effects: Verbal WM task.Categorization Working Memory Span Task (De Beni et al.,

2008). The task consisted of 20 lists of words organized into setsof word lists of different length (from two to six). Each listincluded five words of high-medium frequency according to theItalian repertoire by Barca, Burani, and Arduino (2002). Partici-pants listened to a set of audio-recorded word lists, presented at arate of one word a second and were asked to tap on the table withtheir hand whenever they heard an animal noun (processingphase). The interval between word lists was 2 s. At the end of a setof word lists, participants were asked to recall the last word in eachlist in consecutive order (maintenance phase); that is, they had toremember from two to six words, depending on the level ofdifficulty of the set of lists. Two practice trials consisting oftwo-word lists (and requiring the recall of two words) were ad-ministered before the experiment began.

The total number of correctly recalled words was used as themeasure of WM performance (maximum score 20).

Near transfer effects: Short-term memory tasks.Forward and backward Corsi tasks (adapted from Corsi,

1972). These tests consist of a series of nine blocks randomlyarranged on a wooden tablet. The cubes are numbered on theexperimenters side of the board to facilitate the tests administra-tion. The blocks are tapped by the examiner in a random sequence,and participants are asked to reproduce the same sequence. In-creasing numbers of blocks are tapped, and participants have torepeat the sequence in the same (forward) or reverse (backward)order. The sequences are presented at a rate of one cube persecond. The tests started with three and increased to eight cubesbeing tapped for the forward task, and from two to seven cubes forthe backward task. Each level contained two sequences of the samelength. After two consecutive recall errors, the task was discon-tinued. A practice trial with two sequences was administered foreach type of task before the test started. One point was awarded foreach correctly recalled sequence.

The final score corresponded to the total number of correctlyrecalled sequences (maximum score 12, for both tasks).

Far transfer effects: Processing speed (pattern comparisontest), inhibition-related processes (Stroop color task) and fluidintelligence (Cattell test).

Pattern comparison task (adapted from Salthouse & Babcock,1991). In this task, participants were asked to decide whether ar-rangements of line segments, presented on two pages, were identicalor not. The stimuli for pattern comparison consisted of two pages,each containing one column of 30 items. The stimuli were constructedof three-, six-, or nine-line segments. The items of different difficultywere counterbalanced so that 10 items of three, six, or nine segmentswere presented on each page. The experimenter used a stopwatch torecord the time to complete each page. Three practice trials weregiven before the experiment started.

The dependent variable was the total time taken to completeresponses for the two pages.

Stroop color task (adapted from Trenerry, Crosson, De Boe, &Lever, 1989). This paper task consists of six cards with lists ofnames of colors printed in incongruent colors (incongruent condi-tion), names of colors printed in congruent colors (congruentcondition), and color patches (control condition), with two cardscontaining 20 stimuli each for each of these conditions. Partici-pants were asked to name the color of each stimulus and to processthe stimuli as quickly and as accurately as possible. Using astopwatch, the experimenter recorded response latencies for allconditions (the times elapsing between naming the first and laststimuli), and noted accuracy by hand on a prepared form.

To control for individual differences at the baseline (see Lud-wig, Borella, Tettamanti, & de Ribaupierre, 2010), an interferenceindex was calculated as the time spent on the incongruent condi-tion minus the time spent on the control condition divided by thetime spent on the control condition, so that a higher score implieda greater difficulty in controlling the prepotent response in theincongruent condition.

2 This cognitive assessment generates a score between 0 (perfect cognitivefunctioning) and 10 (presence of a cognitive disorder). All participants obtained themaximum score (i.e., 0), indicative of a good cognitive functioning.

Table 1Characteristics of the Groups

Group

AgeYears ofeducation Vocabulary

M SD M SD M SD

TrainedYoungold 69.90 2.79 10.65 2.50 49.25 5.82Oldold 79.60 2.28 8.75 1.33 50.15 4.57

ControlYoungold 69.55 2.89 10.65 2.96 48.80 4.72Oldold 79.70 2.30 8.90 1.41 49.95 5.37

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716 BORELLA ET AL.

Culture fair test, scale 3 (Cattell & Cattell, 1963). Scale 3 ofthe Cattell test consists of two parallel forms (A and B), eachcontaining four subtests to complete in 2.54 min (depending onthe subtest). Participants were asked to complete incomplete seriesof abstract shapes/figures by choosing from among six options thatbest completed the series (Series-Subset 1). Then they had to solve 14problems involving abstract shapes/figures, and had to choose which twoof the five differed from the other three (Classifications-Subset 2). Inthe Subtest 3 (Matrices), they were presented with 13 incompletematrices containing four to nine boxes of abstract figures andshapes plus an empty box and six choices: Their task was to selectthe answer that correctly completed each matrix. Participants werethen presented with 10 sets of abstract figures and lines, and asingle dot, along with five options, and they had to assess therelationship between the dot and the figures and lines, then choosethe alternative in which a dot could be positioned in the samerelationship (Conditions-Subset 4).

The dependent variable was the number of items correctlyanswered across the four subsets (maximum score 50).

For each of the tasks presented, two parallel versions were devised andadministered in a counterbalanced order across training sessions.

ProcedureParticipants in the trained and control groups attended five

individual sessions: the first and last sessions were for pretest andposttest purposes; in the other three, each control group wasinvolved in alternative activities (see Table 2), while the trainedgroups received training. Each session lasted about 60 min and wasconducted by the experimenter, who explained the activities in-

volved and presented the materials. The training was completedwithin a 2-week time frame, with a fixed 2-day break between onetraining session and the next. Sessions ended with the experi-menter asking participants how they felt about the activities con-ducted and reminding them of the date of their next meeting. Theschedule was identical for the trained and control groups, thusenabling the amount of social interaction to be matched.

The training consisted of three sessions (Sessions 2, 3, 4) inwhich participants received training with versions of the visuospa-tial WM taskthe matrix task(see below), modified in terms ofthe amount of information to recall and the processing and main-tenance requirements presented on a computer screen (see Table2). The experimenter showed participants a series of matricesorganized in the same way as for the matrix task and asked them(as in the matrix task) to recall the positions and to press the spacebar whenever a dot fell in a gray cell.

In the trained task, participants always had to follow the samebasic instructions (i.e., to press the space bar whenever a dot fellin a gray cell), and the subsequent steps/manipulations were in-troduced during the three training sessions, as in Borella et al.(2010), to facilitate transfer effects and limit the adoption oftask-specific strategies: (a) The maintenance demand was manip-ulated by increasing the number of positions to recall when par-ticipants correctly recalled the positions in a given series, orpresenting a lower memory load if they made mistakes (Session 2);(b) the task was varied, requiring the recall of the last or firstposition (Sessions 2 and 4); and (c) the processing requirement(pressing the space bar when a dot appeared in a gray cell) wasmanipulated by varying the number of gray cells (Session 3). The

Figure 1. Example of the stimuli used in the visuospatial working memory task (the matrix task). Participantswere shown black dots occupying different positions in a series of matrices consisting of 4 4 squares; six dotpositions are presented in this example. Participants were asked (a) to press the space bar whenever a dotoccupied a gray cell and (b) to indicate the position of the last dot seen in each matrices in an empty matrixappearing immediately afterwards.

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717VISUOSPATIAL WORKING MEMORY TRAINING

trained group was given no instructions on specific strategies, andno feedback was provided.

The participants in the active control group met the experi-menter for the same number of sessions as the trained group andfor approximately the same amount of time. Sessions 1 and 5 werethe same as for the trained group, while participants were asked tocomplete different questionnaires on their autobiographical mem-ory, memory sensitivity, and psychological well-being during Ses-sions 2, 3, and 4 (see Table 2).

All participants attended a follow-up session 8 months later toassess maintenance effects, when the tasks were administeredagain, in the same versions and in the same order as at the first(pretest) session.

Data AnalysesFirst, preliminary analyses were conducted at the pretest session

to identify differences within each age group. Second, to examinetraining-related gains, a 2 (group: trained, control) 3 (session:pretest, posttest, follow-up) mixed-design ANOVA was run sep-arately for each age group on all the measures of interest.

Third, to compare the benefits of training in youngold andoldold, we calculated the standardized gains (e.g., Buschkuehl etal., 2008; Schmiedek et al., 2010) to check for individual andage-related differences between the two age groups at the pretest

session. Standardized gains3 were computed for short-term gains([individual posttest score individual pretest score]/pretest SD)and for maintenance gains ([individual follow-up score individ-ual pretest score]/pretest SD).

Two (age group: youngold, oldold) 2 (training group:trained, control) ANOVAs were run on the standardized gainscores to identify significant short-term and maintenance effects.Interactions were analyzed using post hoc analyses that consistedof both within-group, paired sample t tests (two-sided), and acrossgroup, unpaired t tests. Post hoc analyses were corrected formultiple comparisons, with Bonferronis adjustment for multiplecomparisons. The value was set at .05 for all statistical tests andat .014 for interactions.

3 Standardized gain scores can be considered as equivalent to effect sizesand are commonly used to assess training-related gains (see training studiesby Buschkuehl et al., 2008; Schmiedek et al., 2010). They offer theadvantage of allowing for variability at the pretest stage to be controlled,whereas classical measures of effect size adjust for the difference in meansby pooling the pre- and posttest standard deviations. We could not usethese scores to compare our youngold results with those of the Borella etal. (2010) study, however, because the latter article used Cohens d. Theonly way to compare the two study populations was therefore for us tocalculate the classical measure of effect size (Cohens d).

4 For the interactions, the alpha value was set at .01 because ninecomparisons were conducted (.05/9 .006).

Table 2Description of the Session Content by Group

Session Trained group Control group

1. Pretest Health interview, vocabulary test, forward and backward Corsi tasks, pattern comparison test, CWMS task, Stroopcolor task, matrix task, Cattell test

2. Training WM training: Increasingly long series comprising from two to five setsof 4 4 matrices, presented one after the other. The matricesalways had one row and one column shaded in gray. Participantshad to recall the positions of last presented dots and press the spacebar when a dot occupied a gray cell. The WM training task includedthree phases, completed sequentially for each level of difficulty (orlength of the series): In Phase 1, participants had to recall theposition of the last dot in each series of matrices; in Phase 2, theyrecalled the position of the first dot in each series of matrices; andin Phase 3, they recalled the position of the last dot again. In eachphase, if the position of the dots to recall was correctly remembered,the tasks difficulty was increased, up to sets containing five seriesof matrices. If a mistake was made in one of the three phases,participants were presented with the next set of matrices, startingfrom the easiest level, and asked to recall either the first (Phase 2)or the last position (Phase 3) of the dot.

Autobiographic memory questionnaire(from De Beni et al., 2008)

3. Training WM training: Four sets of matrices for each different length (from twoto five). The complexity of the task was manipulated by reducing orincreasing the number of gray cells.

Psychological well-being questionnaire(from De Beni et al., 2008)

For each matrix, participants had to press the space bar whenever a dotoccupied a gray cell, as well as remembering the position of the lastdot displayed in each matrix.

4. Training WM training: Four sets of different difficulty (involving from two to fivepositions to recall). Participants were asked to press the space barwhenever a dot occupied a gray cell, and had to recall in (a) the firstset, the last positions displayed; (b) the second, the first positions; (c)the third, the last positions; and (d) the fourth, the first positions.

Memory sensitivity questionnaire(from De Beni et al., 2008)

5. Posttest Forward and backward Corsi tasks, pattern comparison test, CWMS task, Stroop color task, matrix task, Cattell test6. Follow-up (8 months) Forward and backward Corsi tasks, pattern comparison test, CWMS task, Stroop color task, matrix task, Cattell testNote. CWMS Categorization Working Memory Span task; WM working memory.

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718 BORELLA ET AL.

Finally, to clarify the influence of the training task modality, thebenefits of training for the youngold in the present study weredescriptively compared with those reported for the youngold samplein Borella et al. (2010) using Cohens d. The two studies considereda sample of youngold with similar demographic characteristics.5

Results

The preliminary analysesone-way ANOVAsrevealed nosignificant differences within each age group at the pretest session(for all the measures within each age group, except for the forwardCorsi span task in the oldold group), F(1, 39) 2.03, p .16(F 1; see Table 3).

Training-Related Gains in Each Age GroupThe results of the ANOVA are presented in Table 4 and sum-

marized in Table 5.Youngold.Criterion task: The matrix task. The main effects of group and

session were significant. The trained participants correctly recalled morepositions than the controls (MDiff. 4.83, p .001), and all participantsperformance improved from pretest to posttest (MDiff. 6.00, p .001; MDiff. 3.80, p .001, respectively) but decreased fromposttest to follow-up (MDiff. 2.20, p .001).

The Group Session interaction was also significant. Post hoccomparisons showed that the trained participants performed betterat the posttest and follow-up sessions than at the pretest session,t(19) 18.26, p .001, r .87; t(19) 8.45, p .001, r .79,respectively, but worse at the follow-up than at the posttest ses-sion, t(19) 11.02, p .001, r .92. The control groupshowed a significant improvement from pretest to posttest, t(19)4.49, p .001, r .92, but decreased significantly from posttestto follow-up, t(19) 4.46, p .001, r .94. The trained groupoutperformed the control group at both the posttest, t(38) 5.88,p .001, and the follow-up sessions, t(38) 5.69, p .001.

Transfer effect.Nearest transfer effect.CWMS task. The main effects of group and session were

significant. Trained participants recalled more words correctlythan controls (MDiff. 3.42, p .001); participants performanceimproved consistently from the pretest to the posttest andfollow-up sessions (MDiff. 2.80, p .001; MDiff. 2.37,p .001, respectively), which did not differ. The Group Sessioninteraction was also significant. Post hoc comparisons indicatedthat trained participants performed better at posttest, t(19) 8.73,p .001, r .27, and follow-up, t(19) 9.27, p .001, r .51,than at pretest. This group also maintained its better performancefrom posttest to follow-up. No significant difference was found forthe control group. The trained group outperformed the controlgroup at both posttest, t(38) 7.54, p .001, and follow-up,t(38) 10.56, p .001.

Near transfer effects.Forward Corsi task. The main effect of session, but not of

group, was significant. All participants performed better in theposttest than in the pretest session (MDiff. 0.88, p .001),whereas at follow-up, they did worse than at the posttest session(MDiff. 0.75, p .001), and not differently from theirperformance at the pretest session. The Group Session interac-

tion was also significant. Post hoc comparisons showed thattrained participants performed better at the posttest than at thepretest session, t(19) 6.11, p .001, r .28, and at thefollow-up, t(19) 5.48, p .001, r .20, when they returned tothe same level of performance as at the pretest stage. No signifi-cant differences emerged in the control group. The trained groupoutperformed the control group at the posttest, t(38) 3.72, p .001, but not at the follow-up session.

Backward Corsi task. The main effects of group and sessionwere significant. Trained participants performed better than con-trols (MDiff. 0.52, p .001); all participants performanceimproved consistently from the pretest to the posttest sessions(MDiff. 0.68, p .001), but returned to pretest levels at thefollow-up session, with a significantly worse performance than atthe posttest session (MDiff. 0.43, p .001). The Group Session interaction was also significant. Post hoc comparisonsshowed that trained participants did better at the posttest than at thepretest sessions, t(19) 6.57, p .001, r .50, but not at thefollow-up. Their performance declined from posttest to follow-up,t(19) 4.66, p .001, r .37. No significant differences cameto light in the control group. The trained group only outperformedthe control group at the posttest session, t(38) 6.09, p .001.

Far transfer effects.Pattern comparison test. The main effect of session and the

Group Session interaction were significant. The main effect ofgroup was not significant. All participants improved consistently intheir performance (taking less time to complete the test) from thepretest to the posttest and follow-up sessions (MDiff. 11.15, p .001; MDiff. 5.58, p .01, respectively), though they took longerat the follow-up than at the posttest session (MDiff. 5.58, p .01).As for the interaction, post hoc comparisons that trained participantscompleted the task faster at the posttest and follow-up than at thepretest session, t(19)9.96, p .001, r .82; t(19)4.45, p.001, r .73, respectively, but they were slower at the follow-up thanat the posttest session, t(19) 5.64, p .001, r .89. The controlgroup revealed no significant differences across the sessions. Thetraining group only outperformed the control group at the postteststage, t(38) 5.64, p .007, r .89.

Stroop color task. No significant effects were found.Cattell test. The main effect of session was significant: Perfor-

mance was better in all participants at the posttest than at the pretestsession (MDiff. 1.28, p .001). However, follow-up performancedid not differ from pretest and was lower than that at posttest(MDiff. 0.90, p .01). No other effects were significant.

Oldold.Criterion task: The matrix task. The main effects of group

and session were significant. Trained participants recalled moredot positions correctly than controls (MDiff. 3.12, p .01). Allparticipants performance improved consistently from pretest toposttest and follow-up (MDiff. 4.22, p .001; MDiff. 3.55, p .001, respectively), with no difference between thelatter two. The Group Session interaction was also significant.Post hoc comparisons indicated that the trained participants per-formed better at the posttest than at the pretest session, t(19)

5 The present sample of youngold did not differ in terms of demo-graphics (age, education, and vocabulary level) from the one in the Borellaet al. (2010) study.

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719VISUOSPATIAL WORKING MEMORY TRAINING

17.52, p .001, r .89; t(19) 10.89, p .001, r .82, but thisbenefit was not maintained at the follow-up stage, t(19) 4.46,p .001, r .91. The control group performed better at theposttest and follow-up (which did not differ) than at pretest,t(19) 15.39, p .001, r .98; t(19) 4.15, p .001, r .47,respectively. The trained group nonetheless outperformed the con-trol group at both the posttest and the follow-up sessions, t(38) 5.34, p .001; t(38) 4.51, p .001, respectively.

Transfer effect.Nearest transfer effect.The CWMS task. The main effects of group and session were

significant. The trained participants correctly recalled more wordsthan the controls (MDiff. 0.38, p .01). All participantsperformance consistently improved from the pretest to the posttestand follow-up sessions (MDiff. 0.63, p .001; MDiff. 0.50, p .01, respectively) (remaining the same at the latter twotime points). The Group Session interaction was also signifi-cant. Post hoc comparisons showed that trained participants per-formed better at both the posttest and follow-up than at the pretestsessions, t(19) 7.76, p .001, r .59; t(19) 6.19, p .001,

r .45, respectively, maintaining their improvement 8 monthsafter receiving training. No significant differences were seen in thecontrol group. The trained group outperformed the control group atboth the posttest, t(38) 4.74, p .001, and the follow-upsessions, t(38) 4.65, p .001.

Near transfer effects.The forward Corsi task. The main effects of group and

session were significant. Trained participants outperformedcontrols (MDiff. 0.28, p .05). All participants perfor-mance improved from the pretest to the posttest session(MDiff. 0.32 p .01), whereas follow-up performance didnot differ from the other two sessions. The Group Sessioninteraction was not significant.

The backward Corsi task. The main effect of session wassignificant: All participants performed consistently less well at thepretest than at the posttest session (MDiff. 0.30, p .05). Noother effects were significant.

Far transfer effects.Pattern comparison test. The main effect of session was sig-

nificant. Participants performance was consistently better, with

Table 3Descriptive Statistics for the Measures of Interest by Group (Trained and Control) for Each Age Group (YoungOld and OldOld)

Variable

Youngold Oldold

Trained Control Trained Control

Group M SD M SD M SD M SD

Matrix task (max score 60) Pretest 25.05 4.67 25.25 4.46 13.85 3.65 13.35 2.28Posttest 35.30 5.04 27.00 3.80 20.50 3.68 15.80 2.44Follow-up 32.15 3.67 25.75 3.43 18.90 2.83 15.40 2.01

CWMS test, correct recall (max score 20) Pretest 9.05 1.76 8.75 2.17 4.65 0.75 4.85 0.81Posttest 14.15 2.45 9.25 1.55 5.70 0.47 5.05 0.39Follow-up 13.80 1.77 8.75 1.21 5.60 0.50 4.90 0.45

Forward Corsi span test (max score 12) Pretest 4.70 0.73 4.70 0.66 3.65 0.59 3.40 0.50Posttest 6.05 0.94 5.10 0.64 3.95 0.60 3.75 0.55Follow-up 4.80 0.62 4.85 0.49 3.80 0.62 3.40 0.50

Backward Corsi span test (max score 12) Pretest 4.65 0.59 4.65 0.81 3.45 0.51 3.30 0.47Posttest 5.90 0.72 4.75 0.44 3.70 0.47 3.65 0.49Follow-up 5.10 0.64 4.70 0.47 3.55 0.51 3.50 0.51

Pattern comparison test Pretest (in s) 100.33 12.02 101.20 18.48 137.28 12.45 138.10 8.43Posttest (in s) 83.38 13.74 95.85 13.71 127.93 10.55 135.20 7.56Follow-up (in s) 92.20 9.13 98.18 6.32 130.58 8.29 131.98 6.57

Stroop color test PretestContr. RT (in s) 22.53 2.77 20.42 4.76 32.69 2.62 31.63 2.55Incong. RT (in s) 34.34 6.72 32.05 5.11 46.42 3.58 47.30 3.55Index 0.54 0.24 0.63 0.37 0.43 0.16 0.50 0.16Err. Incong 0.60 0.82 0.95 0.89 0.55 0.83 0.70 0.66

PosttestContr. RT (in s) 20.40 4.93 20.41 3.92 26.89 2.51 27.02 2.25Incong. RT (in s) 30.11 6.14 32.43 6.62 42.01 2.86 43.99 3.47Index 0.51 0.24 0.64 0.45 0.58 0.20 0.64 0.22Err. Incong 0.40 0.68 0.60 0.75 1.20 1.00 1.10 0.97

Follow-upContr. RT (in s) 21.54 3.70 20.61 3.27 28.90 2.43 28.85 2.05Incong. RT (in s) 32.13 5.71 32.38 4.60 43.73 2.36 44.89 2.78Index 0.50 0.20 0.60 0.29 0.52 0.15 0.56 0.17Err. Incong 0.30 0.47 0.45 0.69 1.20 0.77 0.70 0.73

Cattell test (max score 50) Pretest 17.50 3.62 16.95 2.65 11.55 2.06 11.35 2.08Posttest 19.25 4.34 17.75 2.24 12.55 2.26 12.20 1.70Follow-up 17.75 3.58 17.45 1.79 11.90 2.00 11.90 1.59

Note. CWMS Categorization Working Memory Span task; Contr. control condition; RT response time in seconds; Incong. incongruentcondition; Index interference index; Err errors.

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720 BORELLA ET AL.

shorter completion times, at the posttest and follow-up sessionsthan at the pretest (MDiff. .6.13, p .001; and MDiff. .64, p .001). No other effects were significant.

Stroop color task. The main effect of session was significant:The interference index was higher at the posttest and follow-upsessions than at the pretest session (MDiff. 0.14, p .001;MDiff. 0.78, p .001, respectively); the difference between theposttest and follow-up indexes were statistically significant(MDiff. 0.07, p .001). No other effects were significant.

Cattell test. The main effect of session was significant: In bothgroups, performance was better at the posttest than at the pretest

session (MDiff. 0.93, p .001), but at follow-up it no longerdiffered from the pretest session (i.e., it was worse than at the posttestsession; MDiff.0.48, p .01). No other effects were significant.

Comparing the influence of training-related benefits on thestandardized gains by age group. Standardized gains are pre-sented in Figure 2.

Because significant benefits of the training were only seen forboth age groups in the matrix task (the criterion task) and theCWMS task (see Table 5), standardized gain scores for short-termand maintenance effects were only analyzed for these two tasks(see Figure 2 and Table 6).

Table 4Mixed-Design 2 3 ANOVA Results for the Measures of Interest, With Group (Trained and Control) as the Between-Subjects Factorand Session (Pretest, Posttest, and Follow-up, Respectively) as Repeated Measures for Each Age Group (YoungOld and OldOld)

Variable

Young-old Old-old

df F MSE np2 df F MSE np2

Specific effectMatrix task

Between subjectsGroup (G) 1,38 14.42 48.61 0.27 1,38 13.46 21.64 0.26

Within subjectsSession (S) 2,76 153.72 2.40 0.80 2,76 112.88 1.83 0.75G S 2,76 83.02 2.40 0.69 2,76 32.82 1.83 0.49

Transfer effectsCWMS test, correct recall

Between subjects 1,38 46.98 7.45 0.55 1,38 8.09 0.54 0.18Group (G) 1,38 46.98 7.45 0.55 1,38 8.09 0.54 0.18

Within subjects 1,38 46.98 7.45 0.55 1,38 8.09 0.54 0.18Session (S) 2,76 61.42 1.48 0.62 2,76 18.34 0.24 0.33G S 2,76 49.17 1.48 0.56 2,76 10.72 0.24 0.22

Forward Corsi taskBetween subjects

Group (G) 1,38 3.87 0.69 0.09 1,38 4.92 0.48 0.12Within subjects

Session (S) 2,76 23.97 0.37 0.39 2,76 5.04 0.23 0.12G S 2,76 8.50 0.37 0.18 2,76 0.47 0.23 0.01

Backward Corsi taskBetween subjects

Group (G) 1,38 15.13 0.53 0.29 1,38 1.12 0.18 0.03Within subjects

Session (S) 2,76 14.43 0.32 0.28 2,76 3.28 0.27 0.08G S 2,76 10.56 0.32 0.22 2,76 0.12 0.27 0.003

Pattern comparison testBetween subjects

Group (G) 1,38 2.99 416.85 0.07 1,38 1.43 201.79 0.04Within subjects

Session (S) 2,76 32.67 38.05 0.46 2,76 24.68 21.26 0.39G S 2,76 8.88 38.05 0.19 2,76 5.99 21.26 0.24

Stroop color interference indexBetween subjects

Group (G) 1,38 1.99 0.34 0.05 1,38 1.28 0.11 0.03Within subjects

Session (S) 2,76 0.18 0.01 0.05 2,76 64.40 0.21 0.63G S 2,76 0.08 0.05 0.02 2,76 0.96 0.03 0.03

Cattell testBetween subjects

Group (G) 1,38 0.73 25.1 0.02 1,38 0.09 10.23 0.003Within subjects

Session (S) 2,76 7.00 2.45 0.16 2,76 12.94 0.66 0.25G S 2,76 1.64 2.45 0.04 2,76 0.47 0.66 0.01

Note. ANOVA analysis of variance; CWMS Categorization Working Memory Span task. p .05. p .01. p .001.

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721VISUOSPATIAL WORKING MEMORY TRAINING

In the matrix task, the short-term and maintenance effects werestronger for the trained groups than for the controls (MDiff. 1.75, p .001; MDiff. 1.23, p .001, respectively). In addition,for maintenance effects the main effect of age group indicatedstronger effects for the oldold than for the youngold (MDiff. 0.34, p .05). The Age Group Training Group interaction wasnot significant for either short-term or maintenance gains.

As concerns the CWMS, for both the short-term and the main-tenance effects, the youngold outperformed the oldold (MDiff. 0.63, p .01; MDiff. 0.57, p .05, respectively), and thetrained groups gained more than the controls (MDiff. 1.73, p .001; MDiff. 1.79, p .001, respectively). The Age Group Training Group interaction was significant for the short-term andmaintenance effects, reflecting the greater gains for the trainedyoungold than for the trained oldold, as shown by post hoccomparisons, t(38) 3.64, p .001; t(38) 3.69, p .001,respectively.

Comparing training-related benefits between the youngoldin this study and the sample in Borella et al. (2010). Figure 3shows Cohens (1988) d values (expressing the effect size of thecomparisons) obtained in the present study for the specific andtransfer effects detectable between the pretest and posttest ses-sions, as compared, at a qualitative level,6 with those reported forverbal WM training in the Borella et al. study. The size of theeffect was large for the criterion task and nearly the same as afterverbal WM training. Similarly, the values of the nearest and neartransfer effects across the two studies were in the range of a largeeffect size (see Cohen, 1988). The size of the effect was also muchthe same, and again in the range of a large effect size, in the caseof the far transfer effect on processing speed. However, the twostudies differ in the short-term effects on the Stroop color test andthe Cattell test, in which there were no effects in the present study(see Figure 3).

Concerning the maintenance effects, both studies showed a largeeffect size for the criterion task (verbal and visuospatial WM task)and for the processing speed measure.

The nearest transfer effect was maintained in this study, but thiswas not the case in the Borella et al. (2010) study. Finally, largemaintenance effects were found for the reasoning task in Borella etal., but not in the present study.

Discussion and ConclusionThis study examined the efficacy of visuospatial WM training in

the youngold and oldold. To our knowledge, it is the first toassess the benefits of WM training in (a) youngold and oldoldparticipants given training as compared with active control groupsand (b) both transfer and maintenance effects.

Consistently with the literature on WM training, we found gainsin the criterion task (the task that was practiced) and in the nearesttransfer task, that is, the verbal WM task (Dahlin, Nyberg, Bck-man, & Stigsdotter Neely, 2008; Li et al., 2008), in both youngold and oldold trained participants. These benefits were main-tained 8 months after the training. The results achieved in thetrained groups were higher than those seen in the active controlgroups, so it is reasonable to assume that the benefits gained by thetrained participants were mostly attributable to the WM training.

Our results thus confirm that learning capacity, at least to acertain extent, is preserved in aging and suggest that WM perfor-mance can be improved by even a very brief training (threesessions), given that the specific and nearest transfer gains foundby Borella et al. (2010) were confirmed using the visuospatial WMtraining considered here.

Concerning near transfer effects, only our trained youngoldparticipants experienced an improvement in short-term memorytasks (in the forward and backward Corsi tests) immediately afterreceiving training, though this benefit was not maintained at the8-month follow-up. A possible reason for this lies in that bothshort-term memory tasks are sensitive to the use of strategies (e.g.,Borella et al., 2010; Vranic, Spanic, Carretti, & Borella, in press),so at the posttest stage, participants may have developed somestrategies to help them store the information and thus performbetter, whereas they returned to using automated skills afterwards(Verhaeghen & Marcoen, 1996). Though we unfortunately have noway to check this impression, because participants were not inter-viewed on their use of strategies, there are reports of strategiesbeing used in the two versions of the Corsi span task (Cornoldi &Mammarella, 2008). These transfer effects were not seen in the

6 The comparison was drawn in qualitative terms because of the smallnumber of participants. For the same reason, the Cohens d values, as usedin Borella et al. (2010), were adjusted with the Hedges and Olkin (1985)correction to avoid any small sample size bias.

Table 5Summary of Short-Term Effects (Pre- vs. Posttest) and Maintenance Effects (Pretest vs. Follow-Up) for Each Task for Trained YoungOld and OldOld Participants

Trained youngold Trained oldold

VariableShort-term

effectMaintenance

effectShort-term

effectMaintenance

effect

Matrix task CWMS test Forward Corsi span test X X XBackward Corsi span test X X XPattern Comparison test X X XStroop Color test X X X XCattell test X X X X

Note. CWMS Categorization Working Memory Span task.

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722 BORELLA ET AL.

trained oldold participants, even at short term (e.g., Buschkuehlet al., 2008), however, probably because of the more accentuateddecline in their cognitive resources, which also affects the spon-taneous use of effective strategies (Verhaeghen & Marcoen, 1996),and self-initiated encoding and retrieval operations.

Contrary to the results reported by Borella et al.s (2010) verbalWM training study, no far transfer effects were apparent in ourparticipants of either age group, with the exception of a processingspeed measure showing that trained youngold completed tasksmore quickly at the posttest stage, and this benefit was not main-tained at the follow-up.

This happened despite the training program used in this studybeing devised so as to comply with the key requirements foreffective training as suggested by Borella et al. (2010); that is, (a)the proposed types of activity combined an adaptive procedure (thetask was made more difficult if participants were successful at agiven level; if not, only the lowest level was presented) withvariations in the corresponding maintenance requirements (toavoid simple practice effects); (b) the training sessions were sched-uled with a fixed interval between them that gave participantssufficient time to consolidate the skills they acquired (see Carrettiet al., 2013). Given previous findings with verbal training, we did

Figure 2. Scores for short-term (pre- vs. posttest sessions) and maintenance (pretest vs. follow-up sessions)gains in units of standard deviation for youngold (A) and oldold (B) trained participants and controls. Errorbars represent standard errors. CWMS categorization working memory span task.

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723VISUOSPATIAL WORKING MEMORY TRAINING

not expect these results, especially in the youngold. The absenceof far transfer effects in the youngolds performance in theStroop color and Cattell tests (which theoretically share processeswith WM) may mean that visuospatial WM training fostered animprovement not in general flexibility, but only in WM tasks. Thisimpression is supported by the finding that the significant transfergains seen were not maintained.

The general lack of transfer effects in the oldold is in line withthe findings of Borella et al. (2013), who also reported no gains interms of transfer effects after verbal WM training in the oldold,suggesting that they can benefit from this kind of training, but notas much as the youngold in Borella et al. (2010). At the same

time, it is also possible that similarly to youngold, also foroldold the training may have elicited only specificWMandnot generalized processes. Moreover, the decline in plasticity(Schmiedek et al., 2010) for this age group could have exhaustedthese specific improvements found in the WM tasks only. It mayalso be that, being less flexible, the oldold improve moregradually than the youngold. It is worth emphasizing that theduration of training is one of the aspects debated in this domain. Inaddition, few studies to date have approached WM training gainsin youngold and oldold; future studies could examine this issue.

The results of the present study might suggest that the trainingtask modality (visuospatial rather than verbal) used here to train

Table 6Results of an ANOVA for Standardized Gains Calculated Following the Training (Pre- vs.Posttest Sessions; Short-Term Gain) and at the 8-Month Follow-Up (Pretest vs. Follow-UpSessions; Maintenance Gain) for the Criterion Task (the Matrix Task) and Nearest TransferEffect Task (the CWMS Task), With Age Group (YoungOld vs. OldOld) and Training Group(Trained vs. Control Groups) as the Between-Subjects Factors

Variable Group F(1, 76) MSE np2

Matrix taskShort-term gain age group (AG) 0.53 0.11 0

training group (TG) 303.11 61.09 0.80AG TG 1.86 0.37 0.02

Maintenance gain age group (AG) 5.54 2.26 0.07training group (TG) 72.91 30.52 0.49AG TG 2.63 1.09 0.03

CWMS testShort-term gain age group (AG) 9.16 7.95 0.11

training group (TG) 68.75 59.66 0.47AG TG 9.20 7.98 0.11

Maintenance gain age group (AG) 5.87 6.58 0.07training group (TG) 57.67 64.64 0.43AG TG 7.26 8.14 0.09

Note. Training group: trained versus control. ANOVA analysis of variance; CWMS CategorizationWorking Memory Span task. p .05. p .01. p .001.

Figure 3. Comparison between visuospatial (present study) and verbal (Borella et al., 2010 study) workingmemory (WM) training gains, using Cohens d, for youngold individuals. CWMS Categorization WorkingMemory Span task.

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724 BORELLA ET AL.

participants influenced the efficacy of the training in terms of thetransfer effects. Before drawing any final conclusions, however, aword of caution is needed regarding the potential differencesbetween the visuospatial and the verbal training task. Although theWM tasks were shown to be similar in terms of their requirements(see Carretti et al., 2012), adapting the visuospatial WM task forthe purpose of preparing training activities may have had a crucialrole. In fact, our training activities required that participants re-member the positions of dots on a 4 4 matrix, together with asecondary, perceptual task (pressing the space bar when the dotsoccupied a gray cell). It may be that participants were less awareof both their improved recall and their errors because dot positionsare less meaningful than words (e.g., Cornoldi et al., 2007), so theywere probably less engaged in activities that prevent recall errors,such as the active control of irrelevant information. This contrastswith what probably happens in verbal WM training, which in-volves having to process words according to their semantic cate-gory (identifying animal nouns): participants usually noticed anyimprovement in their accuracy and the mistakes they made inrecalling animal nouns (in fact, some reported having difficultywith blocking the animal noun that popped up in their mind). Inthis sense, the processing demand of the verbal WM task (identi-fying animal nouns) led to a high interference in recall, andinvolved engaging active inhibitory control mechanisms to preventintrusion errors. An analysis of intrusion errors (i.e., nonfinalpositions recalled erroneously in the WM task) would have givenus a better understanding of the mechanisms elicited by the train-ing. Unfortunately, this measure (representing the ability to inhibitno-longer relevant information) was not recorded in this study. Itis worth mentioning, however, that a further study on WM training(Borella et al., 2013) in oldold adults alone included this measureand showed a significant decrease in intrusion errors in the verbalcriterion task at follow-up, suggesting that changes relating toattentional control mechanisms of WM might have favored train-ing gains. Future WM training studies should make an effort toconsider this variable to further clarify the mechanisms involved inthe training.

In addition, the type of activity (remembering dots) may havebeen seen as too unfamiliar to older adults, and too unrelated totheir prior knowledge (Vecchi & Cornoldi, 1999). Although peo-ple are often exposed in everyday life to the need to retain andrecall verbal information for use in complex activities (e.g., read-ing comprehension), they are rarely asked to maintain and remem-ber positions of abstract stimuli like dots. In this sense, motivationfor encoding and recalling meaningless material may haveplayed a part as well. We hypothesize that, because of the stimuliused during the visuospatial WM task, participants do not alwayssee the task as novel and challengingfeatures that keep theminterested in the activities and stimulate their cognitive flexibility(e.g., Carretti et al., 2013).

Thus, given the nature of the stimuli, it may be that the adaptivenature of the task and the changes made to the tasks requirementswere not sufficient to favor participants awareness of an improve-ment in their performance, with the consequent motivation to dobetter. Of course, these are mere speculations; no training studieshave analyzed the role of training task modality as yet.

At the same time, a greater impairment in visuospatial WMtasks than in verbal tasks with aging (e.g., Myerson et al., 2003)and a greater effort required in the identification process (Sharps &

Gollin, 1987) may mean that more specific processes are needed todeal with the demands of visuospatial WM training tasks than inthe case of verbal training tasks, reducing the chances of anytransfer effect on tasks closely related to WM (such as the Cattelltest). If training programs can help the older adult brain to buildscaffolds in response to age-related changes (Park & Reuter-Lorenz, 2009), we suggest that such a compensatory scaffold canonly be built if the training focuses on abilities that are moreage-resilient, such as verbal skills (crystallized intelligence) (Bal-tes, 1997), which may indeed enable older adults to create thefoundations for supporting their flexibility in information process-ing, and thus compensate for their age-related decline. Alterna-tively, because visuospatial abilities are more sensitive to age-related changes, it may be that the training schedule used herewould suffice when a verbal task is used (Borella et al., 2010), butwould need to be longer to achieve transfer effects when a visu-ospatial task is used. This interpretation would apply more toyoungold, whose crystallized abilities have been shown to havea compensatory role (e.g., De Beni, Borella, & Carretti, 2007), andless to oldold because their crystallized abilities start to decline.These are mere speculations, though they highlight the importanceof clarifying the variables that might mediate the success of WMtraining (possibly including the nature of the training task) with aview to improving the quality of life of older adults, and especiallyof the oldold.

The present results would need to be replicated with a differentvisuospatial WM training task (e.g., using pictures, which are moremeaningful, but retaining the present training procedure) to furtherexamine the role of task modality and training schedule. In futurestudies, it will also be worth directly comparing WM trainingprograms that differ only in the nature of the tasks used, with aview to better assessing the role of the task material in obtainingand maintaining the benefits of training. Although the comparisonbetween the verbal and visuospatial training modalities is qualita-tive, it nonetheless suggests that a further factor (task material) ispotentially crucial in determining training gains. In this sense, aneffort should also be made to select training tasks and transfertasks that are more closely related to an older adults everyday life.Finally, it would be of interest to administer the present trainingprogram to less well-educated and also to less well-functioningolder adults, such as those with mild cognitive impairments, toassess its efficacy and the generalizability of our findings, giventhat the present sample consisted of well-educated and high-functioning older adults who could have been more receptive tothe training. In the same vein, including a control group involvedin most effortful activities (see Brehmer et al., 2012) could confirmthe potential of the present training program.

A corollary aim of the present study was also to examine therole of age by comparing short-term and maintenance gains be-tween youngold and oldold, in tasks for which a gain aftertraining was found in both age groups (i.e., the criterion task andthe nearest transfer task). Our findings showed that aging did notaffect the benefits of training, in terms of standardized gains, whenthe criterion task was considered: In the short term, both thetrained youngold and the trained oldold participants had greatergains after receiving training than their active control counterparts.The maintenance effect of training was also stronger for theoldold than for the youngold, but this effect did not interactwith the group (trained vs. control), possibly meaning that oldold

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725VISUOSPATIAL WORKING MEMORY TRAINING

(both trained individuals and controls) developed task-specificstrategies or a greater familiarity with the task. When the trainedparticipants of each age group were compared in the task measur-ing nearest transfer effects, the trained youngold showed a largerimprovement than trained oldold in the short-term and in thelong-term effects, in terms of standardized gains. These resultssuggest that even the very elderly can still improve and learn,though the youngolds cognitive skills are more flexible than theoldolds (e.g., Schmiedek et al., 2010), and cognitive plasticitygradually declines with aging.

To conclude, the present findings show that both youngold andoldold can benefit from WM training. They also suggest, how-ever, that the efficacy of training visuospatial WM in inducingflexibility is weaker the older the adult (using the training taskinvolved in this study at least). Identifying which factors do or donot facilitate the beneficial effects of training is crucial to futureresearch aiming to develop successful training programs for sus-taining active aging.

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Received September 2, 2012Revision received April 15, 2013

Accepted April 18, 2013

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727VISUOSPATIAL WORKING MEMORY TRAINING

Benefits of Training Visuospatial Working Memory in YoungOld and OldOldMethodParticipantsMaterialsCriterion task: The matrix task (adapted from Carretti et al., 2012; Cornoldi, Bassani, Berto, ...)Nearest transfer effects: Verbal WM taskCategorization Working Memory Span Task (De Beni et al., 2008)

Near transfer effects: Short-term memory tasksForward and backward Corsi tasks (adapted from Corsi, 1972)

Far transfer effects: Processing speed (pattern comparison test), inhibition-related processes ( ...)Pattern comparison task (adapted from Salthouse & Babcock, 1991)Stroop color task (adapted from Trenerry, Crosson, De Boe, & Lever, 1989)Culture fair test, scale 3 (Cattell & Cattell, 1963)

ProcedureData Analyses

ResultsTraining-Related Gains in Each Age GroupYoungoldCriterion task: The matrix task

Transfer effectNearest transfer effectNear transfer effectsFar transfer effects

OldoldCriterion task: The matrix task

Transfer effectNearest transfer effectNear transfer effectsFar transfer effects

Comparing the influence of training-related benefits on the standardized gains by age groupComparing training-related benefits between the youngold in this study and the sample in ...

Discussion and ConclusionReferences