Cognitive Engagement and Aging Mind

Overview

The purpose of this research is to examine whether and to what extent training of different types of cognitive engagement will improve performance on fluid cognitive abilities that typically decline with age. The research covered by this protocol will use behavioral data that yield response latencies and accuracies of the untrained tasks, and brain activations in fMRI tasks, to test specific hypotheses about neural plasticity and cognitive plasticity from these engagement techniques. Hence, human subjects will be employed in an experiment lasting for 20 hours spanning over 2 months where they will either receive real-time strategy-based videogame training or crystallized intelligence training. In addition, long-term retention data will be obtained after 6 month post-training to investigate any long-term benefits.

The purpose of this research is to examine whether and to what extent training of different types of cognitive engagement will improve performance on fluid cognitive abilities that typically decline with age (such as, speed of information processing, working memory capacity, episodic memory, and executive functions). The research covered by this protocol will use behavioral data that yield response latencies and accuracies of the untrained tasks, and brain activations in fMRI tasks, to test specific hypotheses about the extent of transfer, if any, and the underlying cognitive constructs that may be trained in the process. Hence, human subjects will be employed in an experiment lasting for 20 hours spanning over 2 months where they will either receive real-time strategy-based videogame training or crystallized intelligence training. In addition, long-term retention data will be obtained after 6 month post-training to investigate any long-term benefits.