Salminen, T. 1 , Strobach, T. 1 , Sorg, C. 2 , Müller, H. 1 & Schubert, T. 1
1 Department of Psychology. Ludwig-Maximilians-University. Munich, Germany.
2 Department of Psychiatry/Klinikum rechts der Isar. Technical University. Munich, Germany.
Recent studies have reported an increase in fluid intelligence following extensive and adaptive working memory (WM) training. However, it is still unclear which components of such training can generalize to other, untrained tasks. In the present study, we investigated transfer effects from a demanding WM task, which requires simultaneous performing of a visual and an auditory n-back task, to other, untrained tasks tapping different cognitive domains: WM updating, coordination of performing multiple tasks, and attentional processing which, taken together, constitute executive control processes. Compared to an untrained control group, it was found that training led to improvements in the trained task as well as in the transfer WM updating task, and to enhancements in attentional processing. Transfer to the coordination of performing multiple tasks was marginal. Thus, these results confirm previous findings that WM can be trained and, importantly, they show that these training effects can generalize to other tasks that are not part of the training regimen.