Training and transfer effects of executive functions in preschool children

TLDR

Executive functions such as working memory and inhibition are crucial to human behavior, yet it is unclear whether inhibition can be trained in preschoolers. The study investigates whether computerized training of working memory or inhibition can improve these executive functions in preschool children. Preschoolers underwent five weeks of computer‑based training targeting either visuo‑spatial working memory or inhibition, with an active control group playing commercial games and a passive control group receiving only pre‑ and post‑tests. Working memory training produced significant gains on trained and untrained working‑memory tasks and attention, whereas inhibition training yielded limited improvements on trained tasks and no transfer, indicating that working memory can be enhanced in preschoolers while inhibition may be less amenable to training.

Abstract

Executive functions, including working memory and inhibition, are of central importance to much of human behavior. Interventions intended to improve executive functions might therefore serve an important purpose. Previous studies show that working memory can be improved by training, but it is unknown if this also holds for inhibition, and whether it is possible to train executive functions in preschoolers. In the present study, preschool children received computerized training of either visuo-spatial working memory or inhibition for 5 weeks. An active control group played commercially available computer games, and a passive control group took part in only pre- and posttesting. Children trained on working memory improved significantly on trained tasks; they showed training effects on non-trained tests of spatial and verbal working memory, as well as transfer effects to attention. Children trained on inhibition showed a significant improvement over time on two out of three trained task paradigms, but no significant improvements relative to the control groups on tasks measuring working memory or attention. In neither of the two interventions were there effects on non-trained inhibitory tasks. The results suggest that working memory training can have significant effects also among preschool children. The finding that inhibition could not be improved by either one of the two training programs might be due to the particular training program used in the present study or possibly indicate that executive functions differ in how easily they can be improved by training, which in turn might relate to differences in their underlying psychological and neural processes.