Shop 'Til You Drop A Working Memory Training Program for Older Adults to Improve Memory in a Grocery Shopping Transfer Task
Date of Award
2010
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Social Sciences
First Advisor
Harley, Heidi
Keywords
Psychology, Memory, Older Aldults, Training
Area of Concentration
Psychology
Abstract
Working memory (WM) is a foundational component of cognition. As such, benefits achieved through training in WM have the potential to transfer and improve other areas of cognition, such as long-term memory (LTM). WM functioning decreases slowly and steadily after the age of 20 years and impedes complex tasks and daily functioning as one ages. The present study added to previous research on WM training by training healthy older adults on 3 WM span measures: alphabet span, operation span, and reading span. Training occurred in a group setting over 5 1.5-hour sessions, during which the difficulty level of each WM span task was progressively increased. Improvement from pre- to post-test was measured not only in the trained domain on the 3 WM tasks, but also in an untrained domain on a grocery shopping transfer task. The grocery shopping task occurred in a grocery store and entailed a short study period for a list of 15 items followed by participant retrieval of those items from the store shelves. This task can be seen as tapping both LTM and WM skills. Overall, participants did not improve from pre- to post-test on either the trained WM tasks or transfer grocery shopping task. Reasons for a lack of training and transfer effects include various methodological issues with the training program, such as lack of adaptivity and rigor, and a group setting. However, there were a few examples of success in both the training and transfer tasks that are cited. Future research should consider the weaknesses of the present study as well as include real-life transfer tasks.
Recommended Citation
Bauer, Melanie, "Shop 'Til You Drop A Working Memory Training Program for Older Adults to Improve Memory in a Grocery Shopping Transfer Task" (2010). Theses & ETDs. 4217.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/4217
Rights
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