Another position treats general slowing as a null hypothesis because research suggests that this single factor slowing hypothesis may be an oversimplified explanation of the observed phenomenon. One theoretical position is that since this age-related decline is quite widespread, it may be due to general slowing (Salthouse, 1996 Lindenberger & Baltes, 1994, 1997). Some of these abilities for which age-related differences are observed include (to name a few) processing speed ( Schaie, 1996), episodic memory ( Salthouse, 2003, Nilsson, 2003), working memory ( Bopp & Verhaeghen, 2005), spatial orientation or mental rotation ( Schaie, 1996 Sliwinski & Hall, 1997), reasoning ( Schaie, 1996) and dual task processing ( Verhaeghen, Steitz, Sliwinski & Cerella, 2003). The study has implications for the enhancement of executive control processes of older adults.Īge-related declines in fluid abilities have been observed on a variety of cognitive tasks ( Hedden & Gabrieli, 2004 Nilsson, 2003 Salthouse, 2003). Individual differences in changes in game performance were correlated with improvements in task-switching. Trends in improvement were also observed, for the video game trainees, in inhibition and reasoning. They also improved significantly more than the controls in a subset of the cognitive tasks, such as task switching, working memory, visual short term memory, and mental rotation. The trainees improved significantly in the measures of game performance. A battery of cognitive tasks, including tasks of executive control and visuo-spatial skills, were assessed before, during, and after video game training. Older adults were either trained in a real-time strategy videogame for 23.5 hours (RON, n=20) or not (CONTROLS, n=20). In the current study, we used a real-time strategy videogame to attempt to train executive functions in older adults, such as working memory, task switching, short-term memory, inhibition, and reasoning. Yet, recent research indicates that videogame training of young adults may engender broad transfer to skills of visual attention. However, opinion is divided in the literature regarding whether cognitive training can engender transfer to a variety of cognitive skills in older adults. An important goal of cognitive training is to slow or reverse these age-related declines. Declines in various cognitive abilities, particularly executive control functions, are observed in older adults.
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