adult-learning

Memory training and attention deficits: interview with Notre Dame’s Bradley Gibson

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Bradley S. Gibson, Ph.D.Pro­fes­sor Bradley Gib­son is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Psy­chol­o­gy at Uni­ver­si­ty of Notre Dame, and Direc­tor of the Per­cep­tion and Atten­tion Lab there. He is a cog­ni­tive psy­chol­o­gist with research inter­ests in per­cep­tion, atten­tion, and visu­al cog­ni­tion. Gib­son’s research has been pub­lished in a vari­ety of jour­nals, includ­ing Jour­nal of Exper­i­men­tal Psy­chol­o­gy, Human Per­cep­tion and Per­for­mance, Psy­cho­log­i­cal Sci­ence, and Per­cep­tion & Psychophysics.

In 2006 he con­duct­ed the first inde­pen­dent repli­ca­tion study based on the Cogmed Work­ing Mem­o­ry Train­ing pro­gram we dis­cussed with Dr. Torkel Kling­berg.

A local news­pa­per intro­duced some pre­lim­i­nary results of the study Atten­tion, please: Mem­o­ry exer­cis­es reduce symp­toms of ADHD. Some quotes from the articles:

- “The com­put­er game has been shown to reduce ADHD symp­toms in chil­dren in exper­i­ments con­duct­ed in Swe­den, where it was devel­oped, and more recent­ly in a Granger school, where it was test­ed by psy­chol­o­gists from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Notre Dame.

- Fif­teen stu­dents at Dis­cov­ery Mid­dle School tried RoboMemo dur­ing a five-week peri­od in Feb­ru­ary and March, said lead researcher Brad Gibson

- As a result of that expe­ri­ence, symp­toms of inat­ten­tion and hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty were both reduced, accord­ing to reports by teach­ers and par­ents, Gib­son said.

- Oth­er tests found sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment in “work­ing mem­o­ry”, a short-term mem­o­ry func­tion that’s con­sid­ered key to focus­ing atten­tion and con­trol­ling impulses.

- RoboMem­o­’s effec­tive­ness is not as well estab­lished as med­ica­tions, and it’s a lot more work than pop­ping a pill.

- Gib­son said Notre Dame’s study is con­sid­ered pre­lim­i­nary because it involved a small num­ber of stu­dents. Anoth­er lim­i­ta­tion is that the study did not have a con­trol group of stu­dents receiv­ing a place­bo treatment.

We feel for­tu­nate to inter­view Dr. Gib­son today.

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez (AF): Dr. Gib­son, thanks for being with us. Could you first tell us about your over­all research interests?

Dr. Bradley Gib­son (BG): Thanks for giv­ing me this oppor­tu­ni­ty. My pri­ma­ry research [Read more…] about Mem­o­ry train­ing and atten­tion deficits: inter­view with Notre Dame’s Bradley Gibson

Working Memory Training

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Reminder: 60 or so sci­ence blog­gers are cel­e­brat­ing the Week of Sci­ence pre­sent­ed at Just Sci­ence, from Mon­day, Feb­ru­ary 5, through Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 11. We will be writ­ing about “just sci­ence” this week, by dis­cussing peer-reviewed research papers in the field of brain fitness.

Yes­ter­day we talked about Cog­ni­tive Reserve and Lifestyle, a paper and research area that helps build the case for men­tal stimulation/ brain exer­cise if we care about long-term healthy aging.

Today we will approach the sub­ject of cog­ni­tive train­ing from the oppo­site cor­ner: we will dis­cuss imme­di­ate ben­e­fits of train­ing for qual­i­ty of life and per­for­mance in chil­dren with ADD/ ADHD. Some of the most promis­ing effects seen are those that show how work­ing mem­o­ry train­ing can gen­er­al­ize into bet­ter com­plex rea­son­ing (mea­sured by Ravens), inhi­bi­tion (Stroop) and ADD/ ADHD symp­toms rat­ings, beyond WM improvements.

Our main char­ac­ter: Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, whom we had the for­tune to inter­view last Sep­tem­ber (full notes at Work­ing Mem­o­ry Train­ing and RoboMemo: Inter­view with Dr. Torkel Kling­berg), and who has since received the preti­gious Philip’s Nordic Prize.

We high­light some of the inter­view notes: [Read more…] about Work­ing Mem­o­ry Training

Hello: may we ask…

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…a few ques­tions: how did you find us, what we are doing well, what we can do better?

We have just found out that more than 600 people are receiv­ing our feeds, but we only know-and just a bit- the 50–60 who leave com­ments and link to us. We enjoy hav­ing so many read­ers not just in the US but in Europe, the Mid­dle East, Asia, Australia…(thanks Google Analytics!).

Would you mind writ­ing a com­ment to allow us to learn about you and your inter­ests, and also include your feed­back for us? If you have a blog, please write the URL so we can pay a visit.

Enjoy the week­end, and thanks a lot for your time and attention!

Car­o­line and Alvaro

Cogmed Working Memory Training (RoboMemo) Founder: Award for Dr. Torkel Klingberg

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Dr. Torkel KlingbergWe want to con­grat­u­late Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, pro­fes­sor of cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science at the Karolin­s­ka Insti­tute and one of the founders of our part­ner Cogmed, on receiv­ing the Philip’s Nordic Prize for his research on work­ing mem­o­ry train­ing for chil­dren diag­nosed with Atten­tion Deficit Hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty Dis­or­der (ADHD).

The prize rec­og­nizes out­stand­ing research in the field of neu­ropsy­chi­a­try and was pre­sent­ed by the Nor­we­gian roy­al princess Martha Louise at the Rik­shos­pi­tal in Oslo, Nor­way. Trans­lat­ing his research into an active train­ing pro­gram, Kling­berg co-found­ed Cogmed, a devel­op­er of soft­ware-based work­ing mem­o­ry train­ing prod­ucts head­quar­tered in Stock­holm. Cogmed’s rig­or­ous and reward­ing pro­gram com­bines com­put­er-based train­ing and per­son­al coach­ing to help peo­ple with atten­tion deficits strength­en their work­ing mem­o­ries. More than 80 per­cent of chil­dren who have com­plet­ed Cogmed’s inten­sive five-week pro­gram have demon­strat­ed dra­mat­ic and last­ing improve­ments to their atten­tion, impulse con­trol and prob­lem solv­ing skills.

[Read more…] about Cogmed Work­ing Mem­o­ry Train­ing (RoboMemo) Founder: Award for Dr. Torkel Klingberg

Neuroscience Interview Series: on learning and “brain gyms”

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Giv­en that we are get­ting new read­ers let’s re-intro­duce our Neu­ro­science Inter­view Series. If you click on the cat­e­go­ry (in the right bar) that says Neu­ro­science Inter­view Series, you will find the updat­ed list of inter­views we have con­duct­ed (and also some that we have found else­where, such as the one with Posit Sci­ence’s Dr. Michael Merzenich and Dr. John Ratey).

The inter­views we have con­duct­ed and pub­lished so far, with most recent first:

And we have a few more inter­views in the works-please keep tuned.

Enjoy!

New Brain Fitness Guide

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Sharp BrainWe are very excit­ed to announce our new­ly released Brain Fit­ness for Sharp Brains: Your New New Year Res­o­lu­tion. We wrote it in order to pro­vide an intro­duc­tion to the con­cept, sci­ence, and prac­tice of brain fit­ness in plain Eng­lish, by answer­ing the Top 25 ques­tions we have received over the last four months. Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and myself (Car­o­line) have been work­ing hard on this.

You can click here to get your copy of the com­plete guide. Oth­er­wise, keep check­ing back this blog, as we will pub­lish a new ques­tion and its answer every Mon­day and Thurs­day before 9AM Pacif­ic Stan­dard Time. If we missed your press­ing ques­tion, let us know!

Here is a sneak pre­view of the ques­tions we will be answering …

[Read more…] about New Brain Fit­ness Guide