Abstract
The abilities to process and save information to the visuospatial sketchpad and episodic buffer are important for everyday functioning and performing activities. The capacity of this buffer is limited, individual and decreases with age.
However, it is possible to enhance it to some extent. One of the reasons for this decline is the decreased ability to focus on important information and successfully inhibit irrelevantly.
Selective attention or so-called filtering efficiency determines the capacity of working memory (WM) and to some extent co-determines its content. Persons who are able to inhibit irrelevant information have greater WM capacity compared to those less successful in the inhibition.
This ability is possible to assess with "Change Detection Task" (CDT), which can be used for the assessment and as a training task in the research field. The task in the typical CDT is to determine, whether presented stimuli are identical to those presented just before.
It allows to set differ- ent task plans and to make different aspects variable (e.g., type of stimuli, number of stimuli, presentation time, duration and form of retention interval). Research studies suggest that the training of filtering efficiency has an impact on the WM capacity and decision-making ability.
Nevertheless, these studies focused almost solely on younger adults, and the extent to which is this type of training effective in older adults still needs to be further researched. The main objective of this paper is to introduce our adaptation of CDT and study design aiming to examine the extent to which older adults aged between 60 and 74 years old benefit from the training of filtering efficiency.
Participants (N = 60) will be assessed with the neuropsychological battery and randomly assigned to the experimental or active control group. For this purpose, we have developed a version of CDT, application "Filter It" for tablets (OS Android 5.0 and higher).
The application can be used for the assessment or training and has four main parts (Instructions, Trial mode, Training/Assessment, and Results). Our version of CDT contains three types of task (change detection in color, orientation, and shape).
Participant has to focus on the target visual stimuli (on the side of the screen indicated by arrow) in the presence of irrelevant (non-target) stimuli (so-called distractors, on the other side of the screen). After a short retention interval, the participant determines whether target stimuli have changed or are the same.
Each type of task includes seven sequences, and one sequence has 20 trials. The success of the detection is evaluated after each sequence, and the level is set for the following one.
Each level differs in the number of presented stimuli ranging from 2 to 7 on each side of the screen. Thus, the task is adaptive.
Active control group undergoes the training on a tablet using the application "Clouds" (an approximate number system game, developed by Working Memory & Plasticity Lab, University of California, Irvine, 2017). All participants will train according to the individual plan (same frequency and duration of one training session) for the total duration of 6 weeks.
After 27 completion of training, they will be assessed with the neuropsychological battery focusing The abilities to process and save information to the visuospatial sketchpad and episodic buffer are important for everyday functioning and performing activities. The capacity of this buffer is limited, individual and decreases with age.
However, it is possible to enhance it to some extent. One of the reasons for this decline is the decreased ability to focus on important information and successfully inhibit irrelevantly.
Selective attention or so-called filtering efficiency determines the capacity of working memory (WM) and to some extent co-determines its content. Persons who are able to inhibit irrelevant information have greater WM capacity compared to those less successful in the inhibition.
This ability is possible to assess with "Change Detection Task" (CDT), which can be used for the assessment and as a training task in the research field. The task in the typical CDT is to determine, whether presented stimuli are identical to those presented just before.
It allows to set different task plans and to make different aspects variable (e.g., type of stimuli, number of stimuli, presentation time, duration and form of retention interval). Research studies suggest that the training of filtering efficiency has an impact on the WM capacity and decision-making ability.
Nevertheless, these studies focused almost solely on younger adults, and the extent to which is this type of training effective in older adults still needs to be further researched. The main objective of this paper is to introduce our adaptation of CDT and study design aiming to examine the extent to which older adults aged between 60 and 74 years old benefit from the training of filtering efficiency.
Participants (N = 60) will be assessed with the neuropsychological battery and randomly assigned to the experimental or active control group. For this purpose, we have developed a version of CDT, application "Filter It" for tablets (OS Android 5.0 and higher).
The application can be used for the assessment or training and has four main parts (Instructions, Trial mode, Training/Assessment, and Results). Our version of CDT contains three types of task (change detection in color, orientation, and shape).
Participant has to focus on the target visual stimuli (on the side of the screen indicated by arrow) in the presence of irrelevant (non-target) stimuli (so-called distractors, on the other side of the screen). After a short retention interval, the participant determines whether target stimuli have changed or are the same.
Each type of task includes seven sequences, and one sequence has 20 trials. The success of the detection is evaluated after each sequence, and the level is set for the following one.
Each level differs in the number of presented stimuli ranging from 2 to 7 on each side of the screen. Thus, the task is adaptive.
Active control group undergoes the training on a tablet using the application "Clouds" (an approximate number system game, developed by Working Memory & Plasticity Lab, University of California, Irvine, 2017). All participants will train according to the individual plan (same frequency and duration of one training session) for the total duration of 6 weeks.
After 27 completion of training, they will be assessed with the neuropsychological battery focusing on decision-making ability (post-test) and then again after six months (follow-up test).