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Effects of Cognitive Training on Change in Accuracy in Inductive Reasoning Ability

¹ School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta.
² Mental Illness Research, Education & Clinical Center, Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
³ Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park.

Address correspondence to Julie B. Boron at Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Psychology, 654 Cherry Street, Atlanta, GA 30332. E-mail: julie.boron{at}psych.gatech.edu

We investigated cognitive training effects on accuracy and number of items attempted in inductive reasoning performance in a sample of 335 older participants (M = 72.78 years) from the Seattle Longitudinal Study. We assessed the impact of individual characteristics, including chronic disease. The reasoning training group showed significantly greater gain in accuracy and number of attempted items than did the comparison group; gain was primarily due to enhanced accuracy. Reasoning training effects involved a complex interaction of gender, prior cognitive status, and chronic disease. Women with prior decline on reasoning but no heart disease showed the greatest accuracy increase. In addition, stable reasoning-trained women with heart disease demonstrated significant accuracy gain. Comorbidity was associated with less change in accuracy. The results support the effectiveness of cognitive training on improving the accuracy of reasoning performance.

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