Researchers have discovered that older adults perform better on memory tasks when they engage in a variety of related activities, indicating that diverse cognitive training helps maintain mental sharpness as we age.
When Ilber Manavbasi tries to master a difficult piano piece, he practices more than just the notes.
“I rehearse in different situations and moods. I practice when I’m hungry, tired, angry, or happy. I play different songs at various tempos and even on different pianos,” explained Manavbasi, a graduate research student at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. “This diversity in practice makes me a better musician.”
This idea of variety improving learning gains additional support from recent studies led by Manavbasi and his team at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
The researchers found that older adults learned a new working memory task better when they practiced a mix of activities rather than through mere repetition. Their findings, published in the journal Intelligence, highlight the benefits of varied cognitive training for preserving mental acuity as we age.
“Many people believe that the most effective way to improve a skill is through consistent and repetitive practice, but strong skill acquisition is actually enhanced by practicing in varied ways,” said lead researcher Elizabeth A. L. Stine-Morrow, a Beckman researcher and professor emerita of educational psychology at Illinois.
“While the value of diverse practice is well recognized in motor learning, our study shows that this principle also pertains to the enhancement of cognitive skills,” she added.
In a 1978 study, Kerr and Booth observed that children who practiced tossing a beanbag from a fixed distance were less successful than those who practiced from various distances. This concept of varied practice leading to superior performance has also been seen in high-level athletes and academics.
“Top athletes in a single sport often have backgrounds in multiple sports compared to those at a national level, and Nobel Prize winners usually have broader early experiences outside their field in contrast to their nationally recognized peers,” noted Stine-Morrow.
She questioned how this principle applies to cognitive training. If learning is likened to a sport, does having a varied practice approach elevate cognitive capabilities?
The research team concentrated on working memory, the mental ability to remember and process information simultaneously.
“We chose to focus on working memory because it’s crucial for engaging with the world and building knowledge,” explained Stine-Morrow. “It forms the basis for understanding language, reasoning, problem-solving, and various everyday cognitive tasks.”
Recognizing that working memory often diminishes with age, Stine-Morrow and her team enlisted 90 participants from Champaign-Urbana aged between 60 and 87.
Before and after the study, the researchers evaluated participants’ working memory by looking at their reading span, which measures their ability to retain information while reading unrelated material. Participants read pairs of logical and illogical sentences, such as “Headwear worn by royalty is called a crown,” and “An animal with stripes is a zebra,” each associated with an alphabet letter. Those who could recall the letters in the correct sequence generally exhibited stronger working memory, according to the researchers.
Over four weeks of cognitive training, participants completed various practice regimens. For the first two weeks, they focused on one of four activities: the reading span task, a new working memory challenge, multiple working memory tasks, or a unrelated control task. In the final two weeks, all participants practiced a variation of the reading span task.
The group that engaged in multiple working memory tasks demonstrated the greatest improvement on the reading span assessment from start to finish, outperforming those who practiced the reading span task exclusively for all four weeks.
Interestingly, the mixed practice group didn’t show immediate advantages compared to other groups. “They had to work for it,” noted Stine-Morrow. “Mixed practice didn’t initially result in better performance; rather, it fostered better learning. This group took longer to see improvement on the reading span task, but ultimately they reached the highest level of proficiency.”
One possible reason for the advantages of varied practice could be due to the principle of mutualism, where related abilities support each other’s growth, according to Stine-Morrow.
These findings lend early support for the mutualism concept, suggesting it could lead to improved working memory in later life.
<p“With this study, we’ve illustrated the general idea of mutualism through the specific lens of working memory,” Stine-Morrow shared. “If you amplify this principle and apply it across various skills, it could yield even broader impacts.”
Due to the limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, participants used their home computers and iPads provided by the research team to participate in all aspects of the study remotely.
“We are thankful to the community members in Chambana for their support in our research, especially since they had to integrate these activities into their daily routines over four weeks. Most found the tasks to be challenging yet enjoyable, treating them like a game they were eager to win,” added Stine-Morrow.
