Looking into training effects on visual working memory capacity: With individualized training and performance trends.

Abstract

It still has been in dispute whether or not visual working memory (VWM) capacity improves with training. To resolve this question, the current study investigated training effects on VWM capacity from two unique perspectives. First, we gave trainees individually tailored, adaptive training. Second, we examined individual performance trends developing across multiple training sessions. During the training period, the trainees performed a change-detection task in which one stimulus in a sample array, cued by a left- or right- pointing arrow, could change or not change in color when it reappeared with the others in a test array. Training difficulty was individually adjusted by changing either the number of distractors or the SOA between a sample and a mask array within a training session using the staircase method. The threshold obtained from the previous session determined the starting point of a staircase in the current session. The trainees participated in a total of 10 training sessions over a two-week period and each training session took approximately 10 minutes. Before and after training, trainees performed the same change detection task with difficulty being constant across the trainees. We found that VWM capacity (estimated by Cowan’s K) marginally increased after training compared to the pre-training test. However, the amount of improvements in VWM capacity was positively correlated with the number of threshold improvements compared to the previous session during training. In other words, VWM capacity difference between pre- and post-training tests increased, as the number of improved training-sessions compared to the previous session increased. This result suggests that VWM capacity can be enhanced with adaptive training. In addition, the current study presents new ways of training and assessing the capacity of VWM. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2013