{"id":3213,"date":"2018-04-06T08:00:34","date_gmt":"2018-04-06T13:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=3213"},"modified":"2018-03-27T19:26:56","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T00:26:56","slug":"training-working-memory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/training-working-memory\/","title":{"rendered":"Training Working Memory: Bad News, and Surprising Great News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Regular readers of this blog know that I’m very skeptical about training working memory<\/em>. Despite all the promises<\/a>, most studies show that WM training just doesn’t do very much<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"working<\/a><\/p>\n

Better said: working memory training helps people do better on other, similar working memory tests. But it doesn’t help students learn to read or calculate or analyze any better.<\/p>\n

(Earlier posts on this topic here<\/a> and here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

But here’s a tantalizing possibility: what if we could find an even better shortcut to cognitive success?<\/p>\n

Training Working Memory: News from Finland<\/h2>\n

Researchers at Abo Akademi University in Turku wondered\u00a0why\u00a0<\/em>WM training works in psychology labs, but not in classrooms.<\/p>\n

(One of the champions of WM training — Dr. Susanne Jaeggi — has spoken at Learning and the Brain conferences. If you’ve seen her, you know she’s an incredibly impressive researcher. You too might reasonably wonder why that research isn’t panning out.)<\/p>\n

These Finnish researchers wondered if the WM training simply gave students the chance to figure out a particular WM strategy.<\/p>\n

That is: they didn’t have more working memory. But, they were using the WM they already had more strategically.<\/p>\n

This strategy applied to the specific working memory task (which is why their WM scores seemed to get better), but doesn’t apply to other cognitive work (like math and reading).<\/p>\n

If that hypothesis is true, then we could simply\u00a0tell our students\u00a0that strategy<\/em>. We would then see the same pattern of WM development that comes from the training — only much faster.<\/p>\n

Specifically, we would expect to see improvement in similar WM tasks — where students could apply the same strategy — but not on unrelated tasks — where that strategy doesn’t help.<\/p>\n

If their hypothesis is correct, then the results that take 6 WEEKS of training might be available in 30 MINUTES. Rather than have students figure out the strategy on their own (the slow, 6 week version), we can simply tell them the strategy and let them practice (the 30 minute version).<\/p>\n

The Test, the Results<\/h2>\n

The Finnish researchers worked with three groups of adults<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Control group #1 did a WM test on Monday and a WM test on Friday. They got no practice; they got no training.<\/p>\n

Control group #2 also did WM tests on Monday and Friday. In between, they got to practice a WM task for 30 minutes. This is a mini-version of the WM training model. (If they had gotten the full six weeks, they might have figured out the strategy on their own.)<\/p>\n

The study group — lucky devils — were TOLD a strategy to use<\/em> during their practice session. (More on this strategy below.)<\/p>\n

What did the researchers find?<\/p>\n

First<\/strong>: As they predicted, the group that was told the strategy made rapid progress<\/em>, but the other two groups didn’t.<\/p>\n

Control group #1 didn’t make progress because they didn’t even get to practice. Control group #2 did practice…but they didn’t have enough time to figure out the strategy.<\/p>\n

Only the study group made progress because only they knew the strategy.<\/p>\n

Second<\/strong>: As researchers predicted, the group that learned the strategy didn’t get better at WM tasks unrelated to the strategy<\/em> they learned.<\/p>\n

In other words: the group given a strategy behaved just like earlier groups who had discovered that strategy for themselves during 6 weeks of practice. They did better at related WM tasks, but not at unrelated tasks.<\/p>\n

We don’t need 6 weeks to get those results. We can get them in 30 minutes.<\/p>\n

What, exactly, is this magical strategy?<\/h2>\n

The precise strategy depends on the working memory exercise being tested.<\/p>\n

In general, the answer is: visualize the data in patterns<\/em>. If you’ve visualized the pattern correctly, you can more easily perform the assigned WM task.<\/p>\n

You can check out page 10 of this PDF<\/a>; you’ll see right away what the strategy is, and why it helps solve some WM problems. You’ll also see why it doesn’t particularly help with other WM tasks — like, for example, understanding similes or multiplying exponents.<\/p>\n

Training Working Memory: Classroom Implications<\/h2>\n

This research suggests that we shouldn’t train students’ general WM capacity, because we can’t<\/em>. Instead, we should find specific WM strategies that most resemble the cognitive activity we want our students to do.<\/p>\n

Those strategies allow students to use the WM they have more effectively. With the same WM capacity, they can accomplish more WM work.<\/p>\n

The key question is: what WM strategies are most like school tasks?<\/p>\n

We don’t yet know the answer to that question. (I’ve reached out to the lead author to see if she has thoughts on the matter.)<\/p>\n

I do have a suspicion, and here it is: perhaps the practice that we’re already doing<\/em> is the best kind. That is: maybe the working memory exercise that’s most like subtraction is\u00a0subtraction. <\/em>The working memory exercise most like reading is\u00a0reading<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If I’m right, then we don’t need to devise fancy new WM exercises. The great news just might be: the very best WM exercise already exists, and it’s called “school.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Training working memory might be effective not because it increases WM, but because it gives participants a chance to figure out a successful strategy. If so, we can give students the same boost simply by telling them that strategy…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":3223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15,19,30],"class_list":["post-3213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-classroom-advice","tag-skepticism","tag-working-memory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3213"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3226,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3213\/revisions\/3226"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}