ArticleBehaviour research and therapy2021
Working memory updating training reduces state repetitive negative thinking: Proof-of-concept for a novel cognitive control training.
Article in Behaviour research and therapy, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of working memory training on depressive symptoms: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Translational psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Worry and rumination as a transdiagnostic target in young people: a co-produced systematic review and meta-analysis.Cognitive behaviour therapy · 2025Pooled it
- Can we enhance working memory? Bias and effectiveness in cognitive training studies.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2024Pooled it
- Change in Resting-State Functional Connectivity Following Working Memory Training in Individuals With Repetitive Negative Thinking.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2024Trial
- Repetitive negative thinking is associated with conflict-related neural activity that modulates evidence accumulation.Journal of mood and anxiety disorders · 2026Article
- A randomized controlled trial of computerized cognitive training to improve working memory in individuals with elevated repetitive negative thinking: Behavioral and neural outcomes.Journal of mood and anxiety disorders · 2025Article
- Predictors of psychosocial impairment in a transdiagnostic sample: Unique effects of repetitive negative thinking.Journal of affective disorders · 2024Article
- Changes in affective control covary with changes in mental health difficulties following affective control training (AffeCT) in adolescents.Psychological medicine · 2024Article
- Executive Functioning Constructs in Anxiety, Obsessive-Compulsive, Post-Traumatic Stress, and Related Disorders.Current psychiatry reports · 2022Review
- The relationship between repetitive negative thinking, sleep disturbance, and subjective fatigue in women with Generalized Anxiety Disorder.The British journal of clinical psychology · 2022Article
- Executive functions modulate conditioned fear extinction and reinstatement: The differential roles of shifting, updating, and inhibition.International journal of clinical and health psychology : IJCHPArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Repetitive negative thinking (RNT) is a proximal risk factor implicated in the onset and maintenance of common mental health problems such as depression and anxiety. Adolescence may be a key developmental window in which to target RNT and prevent the emergence of such disorders. Impairments in updating the contents of working memory are hypothesised to causally contribute to RNT, and some theorists have suggested these difficulties may be specific to the manipulation of negative information. The present study compared the effects of computerised adaptive working memory updating training (in which the task becomes more difficult as performance improves) to a non-adaptive control task in reducing levels of RNT. 124 healthy young people were randomised to 20 sessions of (i) working memory updating training using neutral stimuli, (ii) working memory updating training using negative stimuli, or (iii) non-adaptive working memory updating training. Adaptive working memory updating training using neutral, but not negative, stimuli resulted in significant improvements to working memory updating for negative material, as assessed using an unpractised task, and significant reductions in susceptibility to state RNT. These findings demonstrate proof-of-concept that working memory updating training has the potential to reduce susceptibility to episodes of state RNT.
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Registered trials
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.