Durant la dernière décennie, la recherche sur les jeux vidéo et leur implication sur les habiletés perceptivo-cognitives a gagné en intérêt. Plusieurs études ont démontré que les jeux vidéo (particulièrement les jeux d’action) possèdent la capacité d’influencer et d’améliorer différentes aptitudes perceptives et cognitives telles que l’attention visuo-spatiale, la vitesse de traitement de l’information, la mémoire visuelle à court terme ainsi que la poursuite d’objets en mouvement. Cependant, plusieurs autres études n’ont pas réussi à reproduire les mêmes résultats. D’un autre côté, un nouveau type d’entraînement perceptivo-cognitif, nommé 3-Dimensional Multiple-Object Tracking (3D-MOT), et qui consiste à traiter des scènes visuelles dynamiques dénuées de contexte, a démontré son implication sur différents types d’attention, la mémoire de travail ainsi que la vitesse de traitement de l’information. L’étude actuelle a examiné quatre groupes de joueurs inexpérimentés qui s’entrainaient durant 10 séances à l’aide d’un exercice perceptivo-cognitif (3D-MOT), ou d’un jeu de haut niveau visuel (jeu vidéo d’action : Call of Duty), de bas niveau visuel (Tetris) ou d’un jeu non-visuel (Sudoku). Des mesures d’électroencéphalographie quantitative et des tests neuropsychologiques effectués avant et après l’entraînement ont démontré que le 3D-MOT, par comparaison aux autres jeux testés, améliorait de façon plus efficace les fonctions reliées à l’attention, la mémoire de travail ainsi que la vitesse de traitement de l’information. Pour la première fois, cette étude démontre que l’entraînement non-contextuel de 3D-MOT améliore les habiletés perceptivo-cognitives plus efficacement que l’entraînement à des jeux de divertissement tels que les jeux vidéo. / In the past decade, research on video games and their implications on cognitive abilities have gained significant interest. Various studies suggest that video games (in particular action video games) have the inherent ability to influence and improve attentional abilities such as visual spatial attention, processing speed, visual short-term memory and multiple-object tracking. However, many other studies have been unable to replicate similar results. On the other hand, a recent cognitive enhancement tool that is visually dynamic and void of context called 3-Dimensional Multiple-Object tracking (3D-MOT), has demonstrated robust effects on cognitive-perceptual abilities such as divided, selective, and sustained attention as well as working memory and information processing speed. The current study examines four groups of non-video game players that train for 10 sessions on the cognitive enhancing technique (3D-MOT) or on one of three different visually stimulating games: highly visually stimulating game (Call of Duty), lowly visually stimulating game (Tetris), or non-visually stimulating puzzle (Sudoku). A battery of cognitive tests and quantitative electroencephalography preformed before and after training, demonstrated that training on 3D-MOT improved cognitive functions related to attention, working memory, and visual information processing compared to video games. For the first time, this study demonstrated that non-contextual training with 3D-MOT improves perceptual-cognitive abilities more efficiently than video game playing.

With the growing older adult population, neurodegenerative diseases common in old age such as mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Parkinson’s disease (PD) are becoming increasingly germane areas of research. Pharmacological treatments have thus far been unsuccessful in treating cognitive decline associated with these neurodegenerative disorders. Alternative interventions, such as cognitive training programs, have shown promise. The current dissertation contains three papers examining cognitive interventions in neurodegenerative diseases. The first paper examined the longitudinal effects of cognitive speed of processing training (SPT) among those with PD. Results showed that training gains seen at initial post-test were maintained three months later. The second paper examined the effects of SPT among those with psychometrically-defined MCI and found small to medium effect sizes for improvements in everyday functional performance among those trained. The third paper examined the effects of auditory cognitive training among cognitively healthy older adults and those with psychometrically-defined MCI and found that effects may differ between those with and with MCI. Overall, these papers show that training effects can be maintained longitudinally and may potentially transfer to everyday functioning in those with neurodegenerative diseases. However, not all cognitive training programs show benefits in all areas, and individuals with differing cognitive statuses may benefit differentially from cognitive training. Future research should further explore the longitudinal effects of these training programs as well as the possibility of transfer to untrained abilities.

The capability to change and adapt, known as plasticity, is one of the most impressive features of the human brain. It is most pronounced during childhood development. While a child acquires various cognitive skills, the brain matures alongside. Language learning is such a process that occurs naturally across childhood development, supposedly within a sensitive period. Originally, the sensitive period for language acquisition was thought to close at puberty, after which language learning was believed to be near impossible. This view has since been challenged and it is now suggested that there are multiple sensitive periods for various aspects of language acquisition. Some aspects are rather well established, e.g. the vocabulary spurt, while others, e.g. comprehension of complex sentences, are not yet fully understood. I was interested in whether and how these two aspects of language learning could be ad- vanced through training within the framework of sensitive periods and how this related to structural plasticity in the healthy developing brain. First, natural gray matter maturation was examined. The results support the existing literature of different trajectories for each gray matter mea- sure and provide new evidence for the widespread maturational process of cortical thinning to be in progress already at four years of age. Second, a word learning training was applied to investigate underlying plastic changes during an ongoing sensitive period of word learning. I found that language-specific inferior frontal areas, as well as domain-general parietal regions, responded to training with gray matter changes. Third, training-induced plasticity was examined at the onset of a sensitive period for complex syntax comprehension. Here, frontal domain-general regions showed plastic changes, but no language-specific regions were engaged. This study underlines the importance of task demands and the crucial role of general processes (e. g. attention and memory) under- lying higher-order tasks such as language learning. The changes to the gray matter structure as a function of language training during specific points in sensitive periods of language acquisition are discussed and I point out how these findings compliment and extend the current literature on brain plasticity in childhood development in the context of cognitive training.

This diploma thesis focuses on the issue of seniors in transportation and examines the typical causes of traffic accidents caused by the participation of persons of this age category. The theoretical part of the thesis explains the demographic development of the society with regard to the population’s mobility and describes the personality of the person in the transport environment from the traffic psychology point of view focusing on seniors. The empirical part of the thesis focuses on the analysis of traffic accidents with the participation of seniors, defining the causes. It sets out the practical tools that can be used to objectively assess the driver's ability to drive in terms of driver's age and the possibility of reducing the number of traffic accidents caused by the elderly.

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Children with ADHD are characterized frequently as possessing underdeveloped executive functions and sustained attentional abilities, and recent commercial claims suggest that computer-based cognitive training can remediate these impairments and provide significant and lasting improvement in their attention, impulse control, social functioning, academic performance, and complex reasoning skills. The present review critically evaluates these claims through meta-analysis of 25 studies of facilitative intervention training (i.e., cognitive training) for children with ADHD. Random effects models corrected for publication bias and sampling error revealed that studies training short-term memory alone resulted in moderate magnitude improvements in short-term memory (d= 0.63), whereas training attention did not significantly improve attention and training mixed executive functions did not significantly improve the targeted executive functions (both nonsignificant: 95% confidence intervals include 0.0). Far transfer effects of cognitive training on academic functioning, blinded ratings of behavior (both nonsignificant), and cognitive tests (d= 0.14) were nonsignificant or negligible. Unblinded raters (d= 0.48) reported significantly larger benefits relative to blinded raters and objective tests (both p < .05), indicating the likelihood of Hawthorne effects. Critical examination of training targets revealed incongruence with empirical evidence regarding the specific executive functions that are (a) most impaired in ADHD, and (b) functionally related to the behavioral and academic outcomes these training programs are intended to ameliorate. Collectively, meta-analytic results indicate that claims regarding the academic, behavioral, and cognitive benefits associated with extant cognitive training programs are unsupported in ADHD. The methodological limitations of the current evidence base, however, leaves open the possibility that cognitive training techniques iv designed to improve empirically documented executive function deficits may benefit children with ADHD.

Des interventions ciblant l’amélioration cognitive sont de plus en plus à l’intérêt dans nombreux domaines, y compris la neuropsychologie. Bien qu'il existe de nombreuses méthodes pour maximiser le potentiel cognitif de quelqu’un, ils sont rarement appuyé par la recherche scientifique. D’abord, ce mémoire examine brièvement l'état des interventions d'amélioration cognitives. Il décrit premièrement les faiblesses observées dans ces pratiques et par conséquent il établit un modèle standard contre lequel on pourrait et devrait évaluer les diverses techniques ciblant l'amélioration cognitive. Une étude de recherche est ensuite présenté qui considère un nouvel outil de l'amélioration cognitive, une tâche d’entrainement perceptivo-cognitive : 3-dimensional multiple object tracking (3D-MOT). Il examine les preuves actuelles pour le 3D-MOT auprès du modèle standard proposé. Les résultats de ce projet démontrent de l’augmentation dans les capacités d’attention, de mémoire de travail visuel et de vitesse de traitement d’information. Cette étude représente la première étape dans la démarche vers l’établissement du 3D-MOT comme un outil d’amélioration cognitive. / Cognitive enhancement is a domain of burgeoning interest in many domains including neuropsychology. While there are different methods that exist in order to achieve cognitive enhancement, there are few that are supported by research. The current work examines the state of cognitive enhancement interventions. It first outlines the weaknesses observed in these practices and then proposes a standard template for assessing cognitive enhancement tools. A research study is then presented that examines a novel cognitive enhancement tool, 3-dimensional multiple object tracking (3D-MOT), and weighs the current evidence for 3D-MOT against the proposed standard template. The results of the current work demonstrate that 3D-MOT is effective in enhancing attention, working memory and visual information processing speed, and represent a first step toward establishing 3D-MOT as a cognitive enhancement tool.

This thesis deals with the effectiveness of individual vs. group cognitive therapies in stroke patients by training sheets, and pencil-paper exercises. The thesis is divided into theoretical and practical part. The theoretical part of the thesis describes the issue of this disease and the current study of cognitive training. The main aim of the practical part is to compare the effectiveness of group and individual cognitive training by means of intensive cognitive training in patients after stroke (within a year after a stroke). Another aim of the study is to find out how patients were satisfied with cognitive function by using the Schwartz scale of therapy. The study included 20 patients who were selected based on predetermined entry criteria. Subsequently, they were divided into two groups of 10 patients. Group 1 underwent individual cognitive therapy and group 2 underwent group therapy. In both groups, cognitive therapy was performed three times a week for one month. The time of one therapy was always 35-40 minutes. Patients were examined at baseline with the Montreal Cognitive Test and Schwartz's scale of therapy evaluation was added to the test at the end of the test. The results showed comparable improvements in the Montreal cognitive test in both groups. Furthermore, they showed comparable...

Aging, also in the absence of pathological conditions, is associated with cognitivedecline, especially in so called fluid abilities, such as episodic memory andexecutive functions. Due to an ongoing demographic shift, a larger part of thepopulation will reach higher ages, and more people will be affected by age-relatedcognitive decline. Finding ways of counteracting this development have the potentialof having large benefits for both individuals and society. It has long beenknown that living in environments that are rich in terms of cognitive challengescan affect cognitive ability in old age. In this regard, intervention studies in whichthe amount of cognitive stimulation is manipulated can therefore generate insightsto the causality of such effects in specific cognitive functions. Cognitive trainingas means to counteract negative effects of aging on cognition has received a lot ofscientific interest in the last decades.This focus of this thesis is cognitive training interventions, which is studiedfrom several perspectives. In Study i, the aim was to investigate the extent towhich executive functions can be strengthened by training in younger and olderadults, and to which degree such training generalize to other measures of cognition.Although a large body of research has been investigating training of workingmemory and executive functions in recent years, the results are diverse, and fewhave been targeting executive functions broadly with training programs based ontheoretical models of executive functions. Study i showed that despite a broadtraining program targeting three executive functions (updating, shifting and inhibition),it did not lead to transfer beyond the very near in old adults. The youngerhowever showed transfer effects to measures of working memory.In Study ii, the focus was on studying how the effects survive across time.There is limited knowledge about long-term effects of process-based training andthe results showed that the training effect was stable after 1.5 years, while only thenearest transfer effect was still significant in both younger and older adults.Study iii focused on individual factors affecting gain and maintenance thereofin a sample of older individuals. We used a strategy-based intervention focusingon episodic memory performance with a number-consonant mnemonic which is amnemonic for memorizing digit-codes. A different set of predictors was observedfor baseline episodic memory performance and training gain. Those that are betteroff in terms of episodic memory performance, also gain more in the episodic memorycriterion task. Further, a higher rate of processing speed was also important.Lastly, better verbal knowledge also influence gain beyond the other factors. Theresults have both theoretical implications regarding how plastic cognitive functionsare, and practical, in terms of how to best design training programs. / Över hela världen blir vi äldre. År 2050 kommer en femtedel av jordens befolkningvara 60 år eller äldre, att jämföra med en knapp tiondel år 1950. Det är förstås enpositiv utveckling men en åldrande befolkning innebär också att vi står inför flerautmaningar. En sådan rör det kognitiva åldrandet. Vi vet att åldrande kan leda tillnedgång i vissa kognitiva förmågor, såsom det episodiska minnet samt exekutivafunktioner. Episodiskt minne är vår förmåga att komma ihåg upplevda händelserknutna till tid och rum. Exekutiva funktioner är ett begrepp som inbegriper vårförmåga att hålla en plan aktiv medan vi utför den, utan att distraheras av tankareller externa störningsmoment. Genom att studera effekter av träning hos yngreoch äldre vuxna på sådana kognitiva funktioner kan vi få kunskap om till vilkengrad de kan förbättras och om denna förbättringspotential är olika beroende påålder. Vi vet sedan tidigare att människor som under sin livstid lever ett kognitivtstimulerande liv också till viss del är skyddade mot nedgång i kognition underåldrandet. Träningsstudier kan ge kunskap om kausaliteten i sådana fynd.Studie i i denna avhandling behandlar träning av exekutiva funktioner föryngre och äldre vuxna. Träningsprogrammet konstruerades utefter en teoretiskmodell som beskriver exekutiva funktioner som bestående av förmågan att inhiberastörande stimuli eller överlärda responser, förmågan att uppdatera informationi arbetsminnet, och förmågan att skifta mellan att utföra olika uppgifter. Resultatenvisade att de yngre kunde generalisera träningseffekten också till otränadearbetsminnesuppgifter, medan de äldre endast visade förbättring på otränade uppgiftersom hade stora likheter med de tränade.I Studie ii undersöktes hur mycket av träningseffekterna som kvarstod ettoch ett halvt år efter träningen. Resultaten visade att både för yngre och äldreså kvarstod effekten på tränade uppgifter samt en av uppgifterna som hade stortöverlapp med träningsuppgifterna, för både unga och äldre.I Studie iii studerades ett strategibaserat träningsprogram för episodisktminne. Fokus låg på att undersöka vilka individuella kognitiva faktorer sompåverkar förbättring som följd av träning. Resultaten visade att de med högre förmågai kognitiv bearbetningshastighet samt verbal förmåga var de som hade bästförutsättningar för förbättring.Resultaten från dessa studier är av både teoretisk relevans i och med att deökar förståelsen för träningsbarheten av exekutiva funktioner, samt har praktiskrelevans för utformning av träningsprogram.

An initial aim of this thesis was to determine whether training of a specific executive function (updating) produces improvements in performance on trained and transfer tasks, and whether the effects are maintained over time. Neural systems underlying training and transfer effects were also investigated and one question considered is whether transfer depends on general or specific neural overlap between training and transfer tasks. An additional aim was to identify how individual differences in executive functioning are mapped to functional brain changes. In Study I, significant training-related changes in performance on the letter memory criterion task were found in both young and older adults after 5 weeks of updating training. Transfer to a 3-back test of updating was also demonstrated in the young adults. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) revealed overlapping activity in letter memory and 3-back tasks in fronto-parietal areas and striatum pre-training, and a joint training-related activity increase for the tasks in a striatal region. No transfer was observed to a task (Stroop) that engaged fronto-parietal areas, but not the striatal region and updating per se. Moreover, age-related striatal changes imposed constraints on transfer. In Study II, additional transfer tasks and a test of long-term maintenance were included. Results revealed that training-related gains in performance were maintained 18 months post-training in both young and older adults, whereas transfer effects were limited to tasks requiring updating and restricted to young participants. In Study III, analyses of brain activity and performance during n-back (1/2/3-back) were executed. This task enables manipulation of executive demand, which permits examination of how individual differences in executive functioning can be mapped to functional brain changes. Relative to a young high- performing group, capacity constraints in executive functioning were apparent between 1–2-back for the elderly participants and between 2–3-back for a young low-performing group. Capacity constraints in neural activity followed this pattern by showing a monotonically increasing response in the parietal cortex and the thalamus for young high performers, whereas activity levelled off at 1-back for elderly performers and at 2-back for young low performers. The response in the dorsal frontal cortex followed a similar pattern. Together, these findings indicate that fronto-parietal as well as sub-cortical areas are important for individual differences in executive functioning, training of updating and transfer effects.