Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, Vol 50, Issue 3 P134-P140, Copyright © 1995 by The Gerontological Society of America

ARTICLES

Effects of multifactorial memory training in old age: generalizability across tasks and individuals

AS Neely and L Backman
Section of Psychology, Stockholm Gerontology Research Center, Sweden.

This study examined the generalizability of gains following multifactorial memory training in healthy older adults across tasks and individuals; 46 subjects were randomly assigned to either a control group or to a multifactorial training group (encoding operations, attentional functions, relaxation). The criterion task was recall of concrete words, and there were three transfer tasks: recall of objects, recall of subject-performed tasks, and recall of abstract words. Results indicated that multifactorial training gave rise to performance gains in the criterion task that were sustained after 6 months. Transfer of gains and maintenance of transfer were observed for object recall only, indicating a restricted range of generalizability. Pretraining scores alone predicted posttraining scores, whereas age, education, and level of global cognitive functioning (Mini-Mental State Examination) did not contribute reliably to the magnitude of training- related gains.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				N. Coley, S. Andrieu, V. Gardette, S. Gillette-Guyonnet, C. Sanz, B. Vellas, and A. Grand Dementia Prevention: Methodological Explanations for Inconsistent Results Epidemiol. Rev., November 1, 2008; 30(1): 35 - 66. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				A. Acevedo and D. A. Loewenstein Nonpharmacological Cognitive Interventions in Aging and Dementia J Geriatr Psychiatry Neurol, December 1, 2007; 20(4): 239 - 249. [Abstract] [PDF]

				K. Ball, J. D. Edwards, and L. A. Ross The Impact of Speed of Processing Training on Cognitive and Everyday Functions J. Gerontol. B. Psychol. Sci. Soc. Sci., June 1, 2007; 62(suppl_Special_Issue_1): 19 - 31. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]