The Effects of Mixed Working Memory Training on Subsequent Training Gains Among Older Adults (MixedWM)

March 1, 2024 updated by: Elizabeth A L Stine-Morrow, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

While an intellectually active and socially integrated lifestyle shows promise for promoting cognitive resilience, the mechanisms underlying any such effects are not well understood. The aim of the current project is test the implications of the "mutualism" hypothesis, which suggests that intellectual function emerges out of the reciprocal influence of growth in abilities as they are exercised in the ecology of everyday life. Such a view implies that improvement in one component will enhance the modifiability of a related component. An additional aim was to test the idea that mutualistic effects will be enhanced by more diverse training in related skills, such as interleaved training of multiple skills, relative to single-component training.

A "successive-enrichment" paradigm was developed to test this with working memory (WM) as the target for training given its centrality in models of attention, intellectual function, and everyday capacities such as reasoning and language comprehension. All participants receive the same target training, but the nature of the training that precedes it is manipulated. Outcome measures include pre- to posttest gains in working memory and episodic memory, as well as the rate of gain in learning the target task. The principle of enhanced mutualism would predict that more diverse experiences related to the target skill will enhance efficiency in acquiring the target skill.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Within conventional assessments of transfer that examine the effects of training on measures of function at a single time point, these ideas has not been tested. In this project, a "successive-enrichment" paradigm was used to examine improvement in cognitive skills as a function of different conditions for earlier training. The target for training is working memory (WM) given its centrality in models of attention, intellectual function, and everyday capacities such as reasoning and language comprehension.

In the successive-enrichment paradigm, all participants receive the same target training, but the nature of the training that precedes it is manipulated. Thus, in Phase 2, all participants are trained for 10 days on the reading span task (RdgS), in which the task is to verify sensibility in a set of sentences and retain in memory an alphabetic character presented after each sentence. The set size adapts to the participant's skill (in both accuracy of sensibility decisions and memory for the letter set). In Phase 1, participants are randomly assigned to one of four groups designed to test the assumption that related and diverse experiences with the target skill differentially enhance the rate of learning the new skill. In the Same Task (ST) control, participants train on the RdgS, and were expected to be at ceiling in Phase 2. In the Different Single condition (DS), participants trained on a WM task different from that in Phase 1 (the lexical decision span). In the Different Mixed (DM) condition, participants trained on two different interleaved WM tasks, the lexical decision span and the category span. In the non-WM Placebo Control (PC), participants train on a speeded lexical decision task (matched in materials and verbal decision component to the lexical decision span the but requiring no simultaneous memory.

Outcome measures include pre- to posttest gains in working memory and episodic memory, as well as the rate of gain in learning the RdgS in Phase 2. The PC and ST controls define the lower and upper limits of performance, respectively. The principle of enhanced mutualism would predict that the DM group will show more efficient learning of the RdgS in Phase 2 than the DS group, which will both show more efficient learning than the PC group.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

90

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Illinois
      • Urbana, Illinois, United States, 61801
        • Beckman Institute

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

60 years to 90 years (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Native English speakers or acquisition of English before age 6 yrs old
  • Self-report of hearing ability sufficient to engage with lab personnel
  • No stroke in the last 3 years
  • No current cancer treatment involving radiation or chemotherapy - No self-reported learning disability
  • No self-reported psychiatric disorder
  • Willingness to be randomly assigned to training conditions
  • No plans that would limit participation during the activity period
  • No participation in a cognitive intervention program in the last year

No additional Exclusion Criteria.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Basic Science
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Factorial Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Different Mixed Condition (DM)
Training in both Lexical Decision Span and Category Span in Phase 1 (which are both different from the target task Reading Span in Phase 2).
Behavioral: Different Mixed Condition (DM)
Participants engage in home-based training on two working memory tasks, both different from those in the target task training. Goal is 10 days of training, with 4 8-min blocks of training each day.
Experimental: Different Single Condition (DS)
Training in the Lexical Decision Span in Phase 1 (which is different from the target task Reading Span in Phase 2).
Behavioral: Different Single Condition (DS)
Participants engage in home-based training on a working memory task that is different from that in the target task training. Goal is 10 days of training, with 4 8-min blocks of training each day.
Active Comparator: Same Task (ST) Practice Control
Training in Reading Span task in Phase 1 (which is the same as target task in Phase 2).
Behavioral: Same Task (ST) Practice Control
Participants engage in home-based training on the exact same working memory tasks as that in the target task training. Goal is 10 days of training, with 4 8-min blocks of training each day.
Placebo Comparator: Non-WM Placebo Control (PC)
Training in a speeded Lexical Decision task only (which has no memory component) in Phase 1 prior to Phase 2 training in WM.
Behavioral: Non-WM Placebo Control (PC)
Participants engage in home-based training on speeded verbal decision, which unlike the target task training, has no memory component. Goal is 10 days of training, with 4 8-min blocks of training each day.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in Overall Working Memory
Time Frame: Change from baseline to 5-6 wks after pretest
Average change in working memory from pre- to posttest in z-score units ("standard unit change"). For each working memory measure (Reading Span, Lexical Decision Span, Category Span, Operation Span, and Count Span), the change in z-score units was calculated [(posttest score - pretest score) / standard deviation of the scores at pretest)]. The score reported is the mean of these 5 values. A z-score of 0 represents no change from pretest to posttest; the unit is the standard deviations of the sample at pretest (e.g., a score 0.5 would indicate a half standard deviation improvement in overall working memory). There is no agreed upon standard of clinical significance for improvement in working memory
Change from baseline to 5-6 wks after pretest
Change in Reading Span
Time Frame: Change from Baseline to 5-6 weeks after pretest
Change in Reading Span score from pre- to posttest in z-score units ("standard unit change"). The change in z-score units was calculated [(posttest score - pretest score) / standard deviation of the scores at pretest)]. A z-score of 0 represents no change from pretest to posttest; the unit is the standard deviations of the sample at pretest (e.g., a score 0.5 would indicate a half standard deviation improvement in overall working memory). There is no agreed upon standard of clinical significance for improvement in working memory
Change from Baseline to 5-6 weeks after pretest

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Training Gains on the Reading Span Task in Phase 2
Time Frame: 2 weeks
In Phase 2, training data on the target task (Reading Span) is collected over 10 days. Training gains are estimated by the coefficients for the condition contrast by training interaction in a linear mixed effects model, in which mean working memory score across training days was modeled as a function of the Phase 1 training condition. Using the lme4 and lmerTest packages for R version 4.2.2, a mixed-effects linear regression model was employed to model the mean daily span score with condition and training day as the fixed factors, and a by-subject random intercept, using the restricted maximum likelihood (REML) method of estimation.
2 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Collaborators

National Institute on Aging (NIA)

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Elizabeth A L Stine-Morrow, PhD, University of Illinois at Chicago

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

August 26, 2020

Primary Completion (Actual)

January 30, 2022

Study Completion (Actual)

January 30, 2022

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

May 16, 2022

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 3, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

January 5, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

March 28, 2024

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 1, 2024

Last Verified

March 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

Other Study ID Numbers

  • Mixed Working Memory Training
  • R56AG058708 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

YES

IPD Plan Description

Deidentified data and Analytic Code will be made available on OSF.

IPD Sharing Time Frame

After completion and paper is published (~2025)

IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type

  • STUDY_PROTOCOL
  • SAP
  • ICF
  • ANALYTIC_CODE

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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