Impact of strategy use during N-Back training in older adults

Abstract

Little is known about the effect of strategy use on working memory training in aging. Here, we aim to assess the impact of strategy on trained and transfer tasks for accuracy and P300, while investigating the effect of age, gender and education. We recruited 26 elderly and recorded EEGs from the cognitive training group and active control group. Our results showed changes in P300, but only a positive trend in accuracy for the trained task across groups. We found transfers to untrained tasks, but we did not observe any difference in transfer effects between training groups. However, our results showed significant differences between training groups for a similar version of the trained task, suggesting that strategy use might have prolonged effects. Individual characteristics had a significant impact on accuracy and P300 for trained and transfer tasks. These findings underline the role of strategy use and individual characteristics during N-Back training.