%0 Journal Article
%T Practice-Oriented Retest Learning as the Basic Form of Cognitive Plasticity of the Aging Brain
%A Lixia Yang
%J Journal of Aging Research
%D 2011
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.4061/2011/407074
%X It has been well documented that aging is associated with declines in a variety of cognitive functions. A growing body of research shows that the age-related cognitive declines are reversible through cognitive training programs, suggesting maintained cognitive plasticity of the aging brain. Retest learning represents a basic form of cognitive plasticity. It has been consistently demonstrated for adults in young-old and old-old ages. Accumulated research indicates that retest learning is effective, robust, endurable and could occur at a more conceptual level beyond item-specific memorization. Recent studies also demonstrate promisingly broader transfer effects from retest practice of activities involving complex executive functioning to other untrained tasks. The results shed light on the development of self-guided mental exercise programs to improve cognitive performance and efficiency of the aging brain. The relevant studies were reviewed, and the findings were discussed in light of their limitations, implications, and future directions. 1. Introduction In research on cognition and aging, cognitive declines among older adults have been commonly documented in both cross-sectional (e.g., [1]) and longitudinal studies (e.g., [2]). The declines tend to accelerate in the advanced ages [3¨C6]. The cognitive declines, in combination with physical deterioration, in senior adults make them critically vulnerable in their everyday activities and could eventually deprive them of their independence and thus diminish their quality of life. This will in turn exert burdens on their families and society. This fact has spurred a growing interest in research on cognitive plasticity (i.e., the ability to improve performance through training) in older adults. The accumulated research evidence suggests that cognitive training is effective in reducing or even reversing age-related declines in target abilities that are vulnerable to aging-associated declines (for comprehensive reviews, see [7¨C10]). A large body of cognitive training studies has focused on directly teaching older adults strategies, including mnemonic techniques (for meta-analysis, see [11]), cognitive strategies facilitating performance on psychometric tests such as those for reasoning or spatial orientation (e.g., [12]). Direct strategy instruction often effectively lead to performance increments in the target cognitive tests for older adults (e.g., [12¨C16]; for reviews, see [17]), but the performance improvement is typically specific to the tasks directly corresponding to the taught strategies [11, 18]. In
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jar/2011/407074/