Can short-term memory be trained?

ABSTRACT: Is the capacity of short-term memory fixed, or does it improve with practice? It is already known that training on complex working memory tasks is more likely to transfer to untrained tasks with similar properties, but this approach has not been extended to the more basic short-term memory system responsible for verbal serial recall. Here we investigated this with adaptive training algorithms widely applied in working memory training. Serial recall of visually presented digits was found to improve over the course of 20 training sessions, but this improvement did not extend to recall of either spoken digits or visually presented letters. In contrast, training on a nonserial visual short-term memory color change detection task did transfer to a line orientation change detection task. We sugg

SUBMITTER: Norris DG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6647533 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature