No clear consensus exists in the scientific community of what constitutes efficient dual-tasking abilities. Moreover, the training of executive components has been given increased attention in the literature in recent years. Investigating transferability of cognitive training in a complex task setting, thirty subjects practiced for five days on a Name-Tag task (controls) or a Dual N-Back task (experimental), subsequently being tested on two transfer tasks; the Automated Operation Span and a dual task (Trail Making task + Mathematical Addition task). Dual N-Back training previously transferred to unrelated intelligence tests and in this study is assumed to rely primarily on executive attention. Executive attention, functioning to resolve interference and maintaining task-relevant information in working memory, has previously been linked to fluid intelligence and to dual-tasking. However, no transfer effects were revealed. The length of training may have been too short to reveal any such effects. However, the three complex tasks correlated significantly, suggesting common resources, and therefore having potentials as transfer tasks. Notably, subjects with the highest task-specific improvements performed worse on the transfer tasks than subjects improving less, suggesting that task-specific gains do not directly correlate with any transfer effect. At present, if transfer exists in these settings, data implies that five days of training is insufficient for a transfer to occur. Important questions for future research relates to the necessary conditions for transfer to occur, such as the amount of training, neural correlates, attention, and motivation.

There is an ongoing debate about the components and processes of creativity. Within the subfield of creative insight, which is often considered to be the first measurable part of creativity, the role of working memory is discussed. Since creative insight appears to happen without conscious planning, the involvement of working memory appears to be limited; a hypothesis supported by several studies. However, there are several studies that support an opposing hypothesis. Namely, that creativity, including creative insights, is a form of divergent thinking and that working memory is needed for divergent thinking. This study investigated the role of working memory in creative insight through correlation analyses between working memory capacity, the frequency of insight and divergent thinking ability. The study was performed using Operation Span to test working memory capacity, Compound Word Association to assess the frequency of insight, and a part of Torrance Test of Creative Thinking to assess the ability for divergent thinking. The result show that working memory have little involvement in creative insight, but that it is involved in divergent thinking. This indicates that the nature of insight is different from divergent thinking.