Training exercises for improving cognitive control in children have been found to not have a significant impact on their ability to delay gratification or their academic success. Additionally, the study led by UCL researchers revealed that these exercises also do not result in any changes in the brain. These findings, which were published in Nature Neuroscience, challenge the widely held belief that training exercises can lead to brain changes.Training has the potential to enhance cognitive control, which is crucial for setting and pursuing goals, and can result in actual benefits in real-life situations.
According to lead author Professor Nikolaus Steinbeis (UCL Psychology & Language Sciences), “Cognitive control is a critical cognitive function that has a positive association with making wise decisions, academic success, strong social skills, and mental well-being. Children with strong cognitive control are also more likely to have better mental health and achievement in the future.
There are many training programs that claim to enhance children’s cognitive control and other areas of functioning, but the evidence for their effectiveness has been inconsistent.
In a study, 235 children between the ages of six and 13 participated in an eight-week training program. The program aimed to improve either cognitive control or response speed. The cognitive control training focused on teaching the children how to stop themselves from performing actions that are no longer helpful in achieving their goals, based on neuroscientific research. The children completed various gamified tasks that required them to control their impulses.
Before and immediately after the training program, the children completed assessments to measure their cognitive control and response speed.After the research, both immediately and one year later, the children underwent further testing for other outcomes that are known to be connected to cognitive control. This included decision-making such as delaying gratification, academic success, fluid reasoning, mental health, and creativity.
The results showed that right after the completion of the training, and even a year later, the children displayed enhanced performance in the specific tasks they had been trained on. However, these improvements did not transfer to other skills, and there were no improvements in any of the related cognitive or behavioral measures.
The researchers also used MRI to examine the brains of the children and found no changes in brain structure or function throughout the entire brain. Further statistical analysis provided strong evidence of the lack of any training effects. Professor Steinbeis commented on the findings, stating that although cognitive control is undeniably crucial for real-life outcomes, the study did not show any broader benefits from training over a prolonged period of time. Therefore, it may be unproductive to consider cognitive control as a skill that can be significantly enhanced through training exercises.”Although our research only focused on a specific set of training exercises, they were developed based on the best available evidence and did enhance children’s abilities in the specific tasks. As a result, we believe it is unlikely that other training exercises would be more effective in improving real-life outcomes.”
“Instead, it might be more beneficial to consider how we apply our cognitive control in practical situations. Our ability to concentrate and learn effectively is influenced by motivation, so concentrating on motivational factors may have a greater impact on how we utilize cognitive control to guide our actions.”
The study was solely conducted on a specific set of training exercises.The researchers believe that their findings in children could also apply to adults, as children’s brains are more adaptable and it would be even more challenging to develop these abilities in adults.
The researchers note that their study did not include clinical populations or children with learning disabilities, so they cannot determine if their findings apply to all children.
The study was carried out by researchers from UCL, McGill University, Washington University in St. Louis, and Radboud University Medical Center.
