Extending Brain-Training to the Affective Domain: Increasing Cognitive and Affective Executive Control through Emotional Working Memory Training

Schweizer, Susanne; Hampshire, Adam; Dalgleish, Tim · 2011 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0024372

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Summary

This study investigates whether intensive working memory (WM) training yields transferable cognitive benefits, specifically examining if training with emotional material enhances executive control over affective information. While commercial "brain-training" programs are popular, empirical evidence for their effectiveness and generalizability remains controversial. Previous research demonstrated that demanding dual n-back training could improve fluid intelligence (Gf), but it remained unclear if such training transfers to the processing of emotionally salient stimuli, which constitute a significant portion of daily cognitive challenges. The authors hypothesized that while demanding WM training would improve general cognitive metrics regardless of content, transfer to affective executive control would require training with emotionally congruent material. The experimental design involved 45 participants randomly assigned to one of three groups: neutral dual n-back training, affective dual n-back training, or a non-WM demanding feature-matching control task. The dual n-back task required participants to monitor auditory words and visual faces simultaneously, determining if they matched stimuli presented *n* positions back. The affective condition used emotionally charged words and negative facial expressions, while the neutral condition used neutral stimuli. Participants underwent 20 days of training. Transfer effects were assessed using digit span (WM capacity), Raven’s Progressive Matrices (Gf), and an emotional Stroop task (affective executive control). Results indicated that both n-back training groups showed significant linear improvements on their respective training tasks compared to the control group. Crucially, both active training groups demonstrated transfer gains on untrained cognitive measures: they significantly improved on digit span and showed gains in fluid intelligence over and above WM improvements, whereas the control group did not. However, transfer to the affective domain was specific to the training content. Only the group trained with emotional stimuli showed significant improvements on the emotional Stroop task, exhibiting reduced reaction times for both congruent and incongruent trials. The neutral training group and the control group showed no significant changes in affective executive control. The findings support the validity of transfer effects from highly demanding WM training to general cognitive functions like fluid intelligence. More significantly, the study provides preliminary evidence that transfer to affective contexts requires training with material congruent to those contexts. This suggests that intensive brain-training can ameliorate cognitive control processes in emotive environments, potentially benefiting individuals with emotional disorders characterized by difficulties in regulating affective information. The authors conclude that while neutral training improves abstract problem-solving, affective training is necessary to enhance the manipulation of emotional material in daily decision-making.

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• executive function