Evidence map›Paper›PMID 26578936›Full record

ArticleFrontiers in human neuroscience2015

Cognitive and neural plasticity in older adults' prospective memory following training with the Virtual Week computer game.

Nathan S Rose, Peter G Rendell, Alexandra Hering, Matthias Kliegel, Gavin M Bidelman, Fergus I M Craik

Open access · goldAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Frontiers in human neuroscience, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
46citing papers in PubMed, 7 pooled it
7.5field-weighted citation impact, top 3% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

46 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 108 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
  3. Pooled it
  4. Pooled it
  5. Pooled it
  6. Pooled it
  7. Pooled it
  8. Trial
  9. Trial
  10. Trial
  11. Prospective Memory Training: Outlining a New Approach.Journal of applied gerontology : the official journal of the Southern Gerontological Society · 2016
    Trial
  12. Trial
  13. Trial
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. Fine Tuning of an Advanced Planner for Cognitive Training of Older Adults.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2025
    Article
  20. Spontaneous memory strategies in a videogame simulating everyday memory tasks.Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) · 2024
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors at 3 institutions in 4 countries.

Nathan S RoseRotman Research Institute, Baycrest Toronto, ON, Canada ; School of Psychology, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne VIC, Australia.
Peter G RendellSchool of Psychology, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne VIC, Australia.
Alexandra HeringFaculté de Psychologie et des Sciences de l'Éducation, Université de Genève Geneva, Switzerland.
Matthias KliegelFaculté de Psychologie et des Sciences de l'Éducation, Université de Genève Geneva, Switzerland.
Gavin M BidelmanRotman Research Institute, Baycrest Toronto, ON, Canada ; Institute for Intelligent Systems and School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Memphis Memphis, TN, USA.
Fergus I M CraikRotman Research Institute, Baycrest Toronto, ON, Canada.
Australian Catholic University · AUBaycrest Hospital · CAUniversity of Geneva · CH

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Prospective memory (PM) - the ability to remember and successfully execute our intentions and planned activities - is critical for functional independence and declines with age, yet few studies have attempted to train PM in older adults. We developed a PM training program using the Virtual Week computer game. Trained participants played the game in 12, 1-h sessions over 1 month. Measures of neuropsychological functions, lab-based PM, event-related potentials (ERPs) during performance on a lab-based PM task, instrumental activities of daily living, and real-world PM were assessed before and after training. Performance was compared to both no-contact and active (music training) control groups. PM on the Virtual Week game dramatically improved following training relative to controls, suggesting PM plasticity is preserved in older adults. Relative to control participants, training did not produce reliable transfer to laboratory-based tasks, but was associated with a reduction of an ERP component (sustained negativity over occipito-parietal cortex) associated with processing PM cues, indicative of more automatic PM retrieval. Most importantly, training produced far transfer to real-world outcomes including improvements in performance on real-world PM and activities of daily living. Real-world gains were not observed in either control group. Our findings demonstrate that short-term training with the Virtual Week game produces cognitive and neural plasticity that may result in real-world benefits to supporting functional independence in older adulthood.

Indexed as

activities of daily living (ADL)agingcognitive trainingERPs (event-related potentials)prospective memoryVirtual Week

Identifiers

PMID26578936
PMCPMC4623669
OpenAlexW1846761421

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.