Reading focus
Syllabus: How Do We Adapt as We Grow Older?
Ask what an intervention adds to the observational and conceptual evidence. Separate sustained training effects, transfer to other tasks, and changes in reported everyday functioning.
A question to consider. Which outcome in ACTIVE best supports a claim about everyday benefit, and how do its measurement and ten-year attrition limit that claim?
Why this reading
Improvement on a trained task and improvement in everyday life are different outcomes. This long-term randomized trial makes that distinction central to evaluating cognitive training.
Before you read
ACTIVE compares memory, reasoning, and processing-speed training with a no-contact control. Transfer concerns benefits beyond the trained skill. Everyday functioning is measured through both participants' reports and performance tasks; these measures need not agree.
Read for
- Trace the randomized groups, training sessions, booster eligibility, and ten-year follow-up.
- Compare outcomes for trained abilities, reported daily difficulties, and performance-based everyday tasks.
- Examine attrition and the assumptions used to estimate effects when many participants are no longer observed.
Consider afterwards
- A program improves a reasoning score and reported ease of daily activities, but not a performance-based everyday measure. What can you reasonably claim the program changed?
Editorial context
Reasoning and speed effects persisted at ten years; the memory effect did not. All training groups reported less difficulty with daily activities, but there was no training effect on performance-based everyday measures. Retention was 44%. Booster eligibility depended on earlier attendance. These results do not show general cognitive enhancement, establish dementia prevention, or validate every commercial training program.