Does strategy training reduce age-related deficits in working memory?

BACKGROUND Older adults typically perform worse on measures of working memory (WM) than do young adults; however, age-related differences in WM performance might be reduced if older adults use effective encoding strategies. OBJECTIVE The purpose of the current experiment was to evaluate WM performance after training individuals to use effective encoding strategies. METHODS Participants in the training group (older adults: n = 39; young adults: n = 41) were taught about various verbal encoding strategies and their differential effectiveness and were trained to use interactive imagery and sentence generation on a list-learning task. Participants in the control group (older: n = 37; young: n = 38) completed an equally engaging filler task. All participants completed a pre- and post-training reading span task, which included self-reported strategy use, as well as two transfer tasks that differed in the affordance to use the trained strategies - a paired-associate recall task and the self-ordered pointing task. RESULTS Both young and older adults were able to use the target strategies on the WM task and showed gains in WM performance after training. The age-related WM deficit was not greatly affected, however, and the training gains did not transfer to the other cognitive tasks. In fact, participants attempted to adapt the trained strategies for a paired-associate recall task, but the increased strategy use did not benefit their performance. CONCLUSIONS Strategy training can boost WM performance, and its benefits appear to arise from strategy-specific effects and not from domain-general gains in cognitive ability.