The effects of dual n-back training on the components of working memory and fluid intelligence: An individual differences approach

Abstract

Measures of working memory capacity are associated with performance on a variety of cognitive tasks. A number of recent studies have provided evidence that training working memory can lead to improvements in fluid intelligence and performance on other untrained tasks. However, many of these studies suffer from design limitations. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of working memory training on measures of fluid intelligence, reasoning, working memory, and attentional control by comparing a training group with an active control group. The training group improved more than the active control group on some, but not all outcome measures. Differential improvement for the training group was observed on fluid intelligence, working memory capacity, and response times on conflict trials in the Stroop task. In addition, individual differences in pre-training fluid intelligence scores and initial performance on the training task explain some of the variance in outcome measure improvements.