In 2021, the global market for cognitive trainers is estimated at a staggering 8 billion dollars. But how effective are they, especially in the realm of professional sports? Dive into the intricate relationship between cognitive training and its transfer to on-field sports performance.
Read more: Efficacy and Transfer to Real-World PerformanceThe Pursuit of Effective Cognitive Training:
The core question of my graduation project was whether targeted cognitive training can enhance a professional footballer’s gameplay. In collaboration with Maastricht University, we assessed the impact of Cogmed’s working memory training on MVV’s professional footballers. Our tool of choice? The Loughborough Soccer Passing Test (LSPT). Unfortunately, pinpointing a definitive transfer effect proved challenging.
Decoding the Working Memory:
Before proceeding, let’s quickly demystify ‘working memory’. It’s a segment of our executive system, enabling us to briefly hold and process information. Essential for remembering, say, instructions from a coach. Professor Susan E. Gathercole and her team embarked on a comprehensive study, analyzing the transfer effects of targeted working memory training to everyday situations.
Delving Deeper into Gathercole’s Research:
This monumental study, a meta-analysis, scrutinized 23 hand-picked studies from a pool of 298 on Cogmed Working Memory training. The underlying hypothesis? Working memory training should cultivate new complex cognitive skills. These findings pivot around the concept that new tasks breed new neural pathways or connections. Naturally, reinforcing existing neural networks and observing transfer effects from them is challenging.
Practical Insight into Cognitive Training:
Consider this analogy for clarity: A child struggles to juggle a ball. With practice, the brain establishes connections, eventually allowing the child to effortlessly keep the ball in the air. Similar principles apply to specialized working memory training. Enhancing pre-existing strong connections bears minimal to no training effect. In contrast, games like Cogmed foster new connections, leading to palpable transfer effects due to these newfound neural pathways.
Causality in Cognitive Training:
It’s paramount to differentiate between correlation and causality. Journalist Willem Schoonen, reviewing Judea Pearl’s ‘The Book of Why’, accentuates this difference. Pearl’s book delineates three causation levels: Association (observing regular patterns), Intervention (actual action or doing), and Counterfactuals (what would have occurred if an action wasn’t undertaken).
The Billion-Dollar Question:
With the cognitive training market’s colossal value in 2021, numerous products, like Neurotracker, Intelligym, EyeGym, and Axon Sports, cater to athletes. These products are rooted in the hypothesis that practicing cognitive abilities that predict real-world success should indeed enhance actual performance. While studies confirm significant correlations between specialized training and practical outcomes, the real puzzle is deciphering the causality, as expounded by Pearl.
Concluding Thoughts:
Contrary to how it might appear, my aim isn’t to undermine the bridge between digital cognitive training and real-world applications. My endeavor is to better comprehend this process, ensuring training methodologies are robustly backed by science. Stay tuned for more on this fascinating topic!
Sources
Fotobron: https://twitter.com/whitesphd/status/1308094245669081089
Susan E. Gathercole, Darren L. Dunning, Joni Holmes, Dennis Norris, Working memory training involves learning new skills, Journal of Memory and Language,
Volume 105, 2019, Pages 19-42, ISSN 0749-596X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2018.10.003.
Harris David J., Wilson Mark R., Smith Sarah J. R., Meder Natalie, Vine Samuel J. (2020) Testing the Effects of 3D Multiple Object Tracking Training on Near, Mid and Far Transfer
Frontiers in Psychology: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00196