This review paper outlines the issues associated with the assessment of executive function (EF) in children and adolescents, and describes the developmental profile of executive processes across childhood. At the outset, EF is defined, and cognitive and behavioral impairments associated with executive dysfunction (EDF) are described. A developmental model of EF is proposed incorporating four discrete but inter-related executive domains (attentional control, cognitive flexibility, goal setting, and information processing) which operate in an integrative manner to enable “executive control”. Characteristics that constitute traditional EF measures are discussed, as are the problems associated with test interpretation. The ecological validity of EF tests and neuropsychological assessment procedures are examined, and adjunct methods of measurement are presented to enable a more comprehensive and valid assessment of EF. Based on developmental and normative studies, the maturation of executive domains is mapped. Attentional control appears to emerge in infancy and develop rapidly in early childhood. In contrast, cognitive flexibility, goal setting, and information processing experience a critical period of development between 7 and 9 years of age, and are relatively mature by 12 years of age. A transitional period is thought to occur at the beginning of adolescence, and shortly after “executive control” is likely to emerge. In order to confirm our current understanding of EF development and further enhance our understanding of brain-behavior relationships, longitudinal studies incorporating structural and functional neuroimaging are required.

The therapeutic potential of working memory training for treating mental disorders

Abstract Working memory (WM), the ability to store and manipulate information for short periods of time, is an important predictor of scholastic aptitude and a critical bottleneck underlying higher-order cognitive processes, including controlled attention and reasoning. Recent interventions targeting WM have suggested plasticity of the WM system by demonstrating improvements in both trained and untrained WM tasks. However, evidence on transfer of improved WM into more general cognitive domains such as fluid intelligence (Gf) has been more equivocal. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis focusing on one specific training program, n-back. We searched PubMed and Google Scholar for all n-back training studies with Gf outcome measures, a control group, and healthy participants between 18 and 50 years of age. In total, we included 20 studies in our analyses that met our criteria and found a small but significant positive effect of n-back training on improving Gf. Several factors that moderate this transfer are identified and discussed. We conclude that short-term cognitive training on the order of weeks can result in beneficial effects in important cognitive functions as measured by laboratory tests.

A growing body of evidence suggests that dysphoric and euphoric emotional states are associated with reliable patterns of frontal lobe activity. Specifically, dysphoric affect coincides with greater right than left frontal lobe activity, and euphoric affect tends to correspond with a converse pattern of activity. The present study examined whether cognitive outcomes associated with the left and right frontal lobes are differentially influenced by dysphoric and euphoric affect. In a completely between-groups design, 60 dextral women were administered either the positive or negative conditions of the Velten Mood Induction Procedure, and they subsequently completed either a verbal or figural fluency test. Euphoria resulted in better verbal than figural fluency performance, and dysphoria yielded better figural than verbal fluency outcomes. These findings are consistent with electrophysiological data concerning frontal lobe activity during euphoric and dysphoric affect, and they underscore the notion that affective influences upon cognition are more complicated than previously thought.

While behavioural trials of working memory (WM) training have received much attention in recent years, a lesser explored parallel approach is functional neuroimaging. A small literature has suggested a complex time course for functional activation pattern changes following WM training (i.e. not simply increasing or decreasing due to training); however, no study to date has examined such neuroplastic effects in both the training task (dual n-back) and the fluid intelligence transfer task to which the training is purported to transfer (Raven Matrices). This study investigated neural correlates of WM training in healthy young adults randomized to six weeks of WM training, or an active control condition (processing speed training) with a pre- and post-training fMRI design. Results indicated significant reductions in activation for the WM trained group in key WM-task related areas for trained WM tasks after training compared to the processing speed active control group. The same pattern of training related decreases in activation for the WM trained group was not observed for the transfer task, which is consistent with null results for all cognitive outcomes of the present trial. The observed pattern of results suggests that repetitive practice with a complex task does indeed lead to neuroplastic processes that very likely represent the reduced demand for attentional control while sub-components of the task become more routinized with practice. We suggest that future research investigate neural correlates of WM training in populations for which WM itself is impaired and/or behavioural trials of WM training have returned more promising results

Abstract Process-specific training can improve performance on untrained tasks, but the magnitude of gain is variable and often there is no transfer at all. We demonstrate transfer to a 3-back test of working memory after 5 weeks of training in updating. The transfer effect was based on a joint training-related activity increase for the criterion (letter memory) and transfer tasks in a striatal region that also was recruited pretraining. No transfer was observed to a task that did not engage updating and striatal regions, and age-related striatal changes imposed constraints on transfer. These findings indicate that transfer can occur if the criterion and transfer tasks engage specific overlapping processing components and brain regions.

The modulatory effects of emotional context on episodic memory have been shown recently. We were interested whether working memory is similarly susceptible to emotional context or whether working memory helps to distract from emotion, i.e. serves to downregulate emotional reactions in order to sustain the prior intention. We tested the effects of emotional stimulation during active maintenance of information by modulating the emotional context of maintenance processes in a Sternberg item recognition task with two load conditions. Behavioral data revealed no impairment of working memory performance during emotional context. Actually, behavioral performance was better for emotional compared to neutral context during high load. Furthermore, emotional context had no interference effect on working memory-related brain activation. Instead, we found a valence-specific regulation effect: High cognitive effort was associated with reduced activity in emotion processing regions, i.e. the amygdala and ventral striatum. This effect was mediated by different prefrontal regions, i.e. by left inferior PFC for negative and left superior PFC for positive valence. Furthermore, our results reveal an integration effect of emotion and cognition in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex showing increased recruitment with increasing complexity of the task. The results presented here are of relevance for the understanding of regulatory mechanisms and diseases characterized by increased susceptibility to emotional distraction.

Manipulation of emotional conditions triggers neuro-chemical mechanisms and cause to release dopamine, epinephrine and glucose. These neurotransmitters related to memory process through central or peripheral receptors. In this study the effects of pleasant arousal which was the result of watching special films, was investigated on working memory based on gender. 60 volunteers (30 men, 30 women) who were selected among undergraduate students from Tehran and Tarbiyat Modares Universities were accidentally divided into two groups. They completed a working memory scale. Each group watched one of the emotional or neutral films. Immediately after watching the film, the working memory scale was being done as a post-test. In order to assess the effect of positive arousal on working memory, first the difference between the scores of pre-test and post-test was assessed and then they were compared using independent t-test. The results were significantly higher in experimental group compare to the control group and show that positive emotional arousal enhances working memory.

Abstract Emotions are powerful determinants of behaviour, thought and experience, and they may be regulated in various ways. Neuroimaging studies have implicated several brain regions in emotion regulation, including the ventral anterior cingulate and ventromedial prefrontal cortices, as well as the lateral prefrontal and parietal cortices. Drawing on computational approaches to value-based decision-making and reinforcement learning, we propose a unifying conceptual framework for understanding the neural bases of diverse forms of emotion regulation.

Fluid intelligence (Gf) refers to the ability to reason and to solve new problems independently of previously acquired knowledge. Gf is critical for a wide variety of cognitive tasks, and it is considered one of the most important factors in learning. Moreover, Gf is closely related to professional and educational success, especially in complex and demanding environments. Although performance on tests of Gf can be improved through direct practice on the tests themselves, there is no evidence that training on any other regimen yields increased Gf in adults. Furthermore, there is a long history of research into cognitive training showing that, although performance on trained tasks can increase dramatically, transfer of this learning to other tasks remains poor. Here, we present evidence for transfer from training on a demanding working memory task to measures of Gf. This transfer results even though the trained task is entirely different from the intelligence test itself. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the extent of gain in intelligence critically depends on the amount of training: the more training, the more improvement in Gf. That is, the training effect is dosage-dependent. Thus, in contrast to many previous studies, we conclude that it is possible to improve Gf without practicing the testing tasks themselves, opening a wide range of applications.

Working memory (WM) training has recently become a topic of intense interest and controversy. Although several recent studies have reported near- and far-transfer effects as a result of training WM-related skills, others have failed to show far transfer, suggesting that generalization effects are elusive. Also, many of the earlier intervention attempts have been criticized on methodological grounds. The present study resolves some of the methodological limitations of previous studies and also considers individual differences as potential explanations for the differing transfer effects across studies. We recruited intrinsically motivated participants and assessed their need for cognition (NFC; Cacioppo & Petty Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 42:116 131, 1982 ) and their implicit theories of intelligence (Dweck, 1999 ) prior to training. We assessed the efficacy of two WM interventions by comparing participants improvements on a battery of fluid intelligence tests against those of an active control group. We observed that transfer to a composite measure of fluid reasoning resulted from both WM interventions. In addition, we uncovered factors that contributed to training success, including motivation, need for cognition, preexisting ability, and implicit theories about intelligence.

Abstract This study examined differential age effects in a young and a middle-aged sample by means of a sequential n-back task with increasing memory load. Participants processed two streams of stimuli either separately as a single task, or simultaneously as a dual task. We investigated age effects as a function of memory load in both the single and the dual-task version. In accuracy, we observed differential age effects as a function of load, which were more prominent in the dual-compared to the single-task versions. That is, middle-aged participants performed poorer than young adults in the dual-task conditions, suggesting that early age-related changes become especially apparent in conditions where task coordination and resource sharing come into play. Regarding latencies, we observed no differential age effect, which we believe is due to characteristics of the sequential n-back task.

Many studies of task switching have found that a prolonged preparation time reduces switch costs. An alternative manipulation of task preparation is based on sequential task predictability, rather than preparation time. In Experiments 1 and 2 of the present study, participants performed explicitly instructed task sequences (i.e., AABB) and were then transferred to a random sequence. The observed benefit of predictability-based task preparation was not switch specific. In Experiment 3, the participants changed from random to predictable tasks. The observed predictability benefit again was not switch specific. The data thus suggest that task switching does not necessarily require a switch-specific reconfiguration process. Rather, task-specific control processes may be needed in both task switches and repetitions.

It is proposed that threat-evoked anxiety and spatial Working Memory (WM) rely on a common visuospatial attention mechanism. A prediction of this hypothesis is that spatial but not verbal WM should be disrupted in conditions of threat anxiety. Participants performed verbal and spatial n -back WM tasks in the presence or absence of threat of shock (shocks were not delivered). The presence of anxiety was assessed via heart rate recordings and self-report. Both measures clearly distinguished between WM blocks associated with threat of shock (Threat) and blocks, in which threat was absent (Safety). Performance on the spatial WM task was impaired in Threat relative to Safety. Furthermore, the more anxiety participants reported and the higher their heart rate in Threat compared to Safety, the more impaired was their spatial WM performance. This effect was not observed for verbal WM. The results indicate selective disruption of spatial WM performance by threat-evoked anxiety, interpreted in terms of more overlap in visuospatial attention between anxiety and spatial WM vs. anxiety and verbal WM.

Working memory (WM) training has been reported to benefit abilities as diverse as fluid intelligence (Jaeggi et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105:6829–6833, 2008 ) and reading comprehension (Chein & Morrison, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 17:193–199, 2010 ), but transfer is not always observed (for reviews, see Morrison & Chein, Psychonomics Bulletin & Review, 18:46–60, 2011 ; Shipstead et al., Psychological Bulletin, 138:628–654, 2012 ). In contrast, recent WM training studies have consistently reported improvement on the trained tasks. The basis for these training benefits has received little attention, however, and it is not known which WM components and/or processes are being improved. Therefore, the goal of the present study was to investigate five possible mechanisms underlying the effects of adaptive dual n -back training on working memory (i.e., improvements in executive attention, updating, and focus switching, as well as increases in the capacity of the focus of attention and short-term memory). In addition to a no-contact control group, the present study also included an active control group whose members received nonadaptive training on the same task. All three groups showed significant improvements on the n -back task from pretest to posttest, but adaptive training produced larger improvements than did nonadaptive training, which in turn produced larger improvements than simply retesting. Adaptive, but not nonadaptive, training also resulted in improvements on an untrained running span task that measured the capacity of the focus of attention. No other differential improvements were observed, suggesting that increases in the capacity of the focus of attention underlie the benefits of adaptive dual n -back training.

Visual for the contrast and spatial frequency of sinusoidal gratings was measured in a delayed discrimination task in which the 2 stimuli to be compared were separated in time by 1-10 s interstimulus intervals (ISIs). Delayed discrimination thresholds for spatial frequency and contrast were compared, both when the 2 types of thresholds were measured in separate blocks of trials and when the 2 types of measures were randomly intermixed in an uncertainty paradigm, which required participants to process information about both dimensions on each trial. In both cases, accuracy of for spatial frequency was independent of ISI, but for contrast decreased as ISI increased. Performance was lower in the uncertainty case, but only by an amount predicted by statistical decision theory for independent sources. The results are consistent with a model assuming a set of parallel special-purpose visual discrimination and mechanisms.

Abstract Two experiments are reported which suggest that a dynamic memory updating task, running memory, requires two independent mechanisms the articulatory loop and a component of the central executive. Experiment 1 shows that irrelevant speech and articulatory suppression impair the serial recall component of the running memory task but not the updating component. Updating memory affects performance independently of the effects of irrelevant speech and suppression. The second experiment produced the same pattern of results with a close to span memory load. These results are interpreted in terms of the working memory model outlined by Baddeley (1986). It is concluded that the updating of working memory in real time is coordinated by a central executive component of the model.

Cognitive symptoms of depression, such as rumination, have shown to be associated with deficits in working memory functioning. More precisely, the capacity to expel irrelevant negative information from working memory seems to be affected. Even though these associations have repeatedly been demonstrated, the nature and causal direction of this association is still unclear. Therefore, within an experimental design, we tried to manipulate working memory functioning of participants with heightened rumination scores in two similar experiments (n66=6672 and n66=6645) using a six day working memory training compared to active and passive control groups. Subsequently the effects on the processing of non-emotional and emotional information in working memory were monitored. In both experiments, performance during the training task significantly increased, but this performance gain did not transfer to the outcome working memory tasks or rumination and depression measures. Possible explanations for the failure to find transfer effects are discussed.

In the years prior to 1994, there were very high rates of inflation in Poland, and the zloty depreciated relative to the U.S. dollar. However, the new zloty, introduced in 1995, was associated with greatly decreased rates of inflation and provided a more stable currency. We report a series of three experiments that take advantage of these changes to examine the effects of inflation on the subjective value of delayed and probabilistic rewards. Subjects were Polish citizens familiar with both zlotys and dollars. The first two experiments, conducted in 1994, used dollars and old zlotys, and the third experiment, conducted in 1996, used dollars and new zlotys. In all three experiments, the dollar and zloty rewards were of equivalent worth, according to the then current exchange rates. In Experiment 1, subjects chose between immediate and delayed rewards and, in Experiment 2, chose between certain and probabilistic rewards. The subjective value of a delayed reward was greater when its amount was specified in dollars than when it was specified in old zlotys. In contrast, the currency in which a reward was specified had no effect on the subjective value of probabilistic rewards. The results of these two experiments suggest a selective effect of inflation on decisions involving delayed rewards. This was verified in the third experiment, in which, using new zlotys, no differences in discounting were observed between the two currencies with either probabilistic or delayed rewards. Importantly, in all three experiments, the discounting of both delayed and probabilistic rewards was well described by the same simple mathematical model, suggesting that similar decision-making processes underlie both phenomena. However, the present results argue against a single-process theory in which the discounting of probabilistic rewards is derived from the discounting of delayed rewards.

随着工作记忆缺损与各类精神疾病的关联被逐渐阐明,研究者开始关注工作记忆训练能否作为干预手段应用在精神疾病领域中。当前,在对ADHD、精神分裂症、抑郁、焦虑、成瘾障碍和自闭症患者进行的工作记忆训练中发现了训练近迁移、远迁移以及临床症状缓解的相应证据,以及直接（通过提升工作记忆能力起效）和间接（通过提升其他关联能力起效）两条效益路径。此外,一个针对精神疾病患者的有效训练范式应当就三个层面进行考察：训练的一般成分（即受训的核心加工过程）,训练的疾病特异成分（例如情绪工作记忆训练）;以及训练的辅助性成分（例如动机、策略、慢波睡眠等）。未来研究需要关注适用不同精神疾病的训练范式与程序,促进工作记忆训练的定制化,并且通过完善评估手段进一步澄清工作记忆训练在病患中的效益机制。

Abstract There continues to be no consensus definition of executive functions. One way to understand different executive function components is to study abilities at their emergence, that is, early in development, and use advanced statistical methods to understand the interrelations among executive processes. However, to fully determine the constructs of interest, these methods often require complete data on a large battery of tasks, which are difficult to obtain with young children. Path analysis is an alternative statistical technique that requires only a single measure of each construct, yet still allows researchers to investigate complex relations among measures, to compare nested models, and to compare model fit across groups. Therefore, 117 preschool children (ages 2 years 8 months to 6 years 0 months) completed several executive function tasks. Path analysis was used to determine the relations between complex problem solving and working memory, inhibition, and set shifting processes. The best-fitting model included paths from working memory and inhibition to problem solving, and a correlation between working memory and inhibition. Interestingly, in younger children, inhibition was the strongest predictor of problem solving, whereas working memory contributed more strongly in older children. Suggestions for useful statistical methods to investigate the relations among executive functions in children are discussed.

On the basis of a review of the extant literature describing emotion-cognition interactions, the authors propose 4 methodological desiderata for studying how task-irrelevant affect modulates cognition and present data from an experiment satisfying them. Consistent with accounts of the hemispheric asymmetries characterizing withdrawal-related negative affect and visuospatial working memory (WM) in prefrontal and parietal cortices, threat-induced anxiety selectively disrupted accuracy of spatial but not verbal WM performance. Furthermore, individual differences in physiological measures of anxiety statistically mediated the degree of disruption. A second experiment revealed that individuals characterized by high levels of behavioral inhibition exhibited more intense anxiety and relatively worse spatial WM performance in the absence of threat, solidifying the authors' inference that anxiety causally mediates disruption. These observations suggest a revision of extant models of how anxiety sculpts cognition and underscore the utility of the desiderata.

Recently, attempts have been made to alter the capacity of working memory (WMC) through extensive practice on adaptive working memory tasks that adjust difficulty in response to user performance. We discuss the design criteria required to claim validity as well as generalizability and how recent studies do or do not satisfy those criteria. It is concluded that, as of yet, the results are inconsistent and this is likely driven by inadequate controls and ineffective measurement of the cognitive abilities of interest.

Working memory (WM) is a cognitive system that strongly relates to a person's ability to reason with novel information and direct attention to goal-relevant information. Due to the central role that WM plays in general cognition, it has become the focus of a rapidly growing training literature that seeks to affect broad cognitive change through prolonged training on WM tasks. Recent work has suggested that the effects of WM training extend to general fluid intelligence, attentional control, and reductions in symptoms of ADHD. We present a theoretically motivated perspective of WM and subsequently review the WM training literature in light of several concerns. These include (a) the tendency for researchers to define change to abilities using single tasks, (b) inconsistent use of valid WM tasks, (c) no-contact control groups, and (d) subjective measurement of change. The literature review highlights several findings that warrant further research but ultimately concludes that there is a need to directly demonstrate that WM capacity increases in response to training. Specifically, we argue that transfer of training to WM must be demonstrated using a wider variety of tasks, thus eliminating the possibility that results can be explained by task specific learning. Additionally, we express concern that many of the most promising results (e.g., increased intelligence) cannot be readily attributed to changes in WM capacity. Thus, a critical goal for future research is to uncover the mechanisms that lead to transfer of training.

It has been suggested that maintenance in visuospatial immediate memory involves implicit motor processes that are analogous to the articulatory loop in verbal memory. An alternative account, which is explored here, is that maintenance is based on shifts of spatial attention. In four experiments, subjects recalled spatial memory span items after an interval, and in a fifth experiment, digit span was recalled after an interval. The tasks carried out during the interval included touching visual targets, repeating heard words, listening to tones from spatially sepa-rated locations, pointing to these tones, pointing to visual targets, and categorizing spatial tar-gets as being from the left or right. Spatial span recall was impaired if subjects saw visual tar-gets or heard tones, and this impairment was increased if either a motor response or a categorical response was made. Repeating words heard in different spatial locations did not impair recall, but reading visually presented words did interfere. For digit span only, the tasks involving a verbal response impaired recall. The results are interpreted within a framework in which active spatial attention is involved in maintaining spatial items in order in memory, and is interfered with by any task (visual, auditory, perceptual, motor) that also makes demands on spatial attention.

The efficacy of working memory (WM) training has been a controversial and hotly debated issue during the past years. Despite a large number of training studies and several meta-analyses, the matter has not yet been solved. We conducted a multi-level meta-analysis on the cognitive transfer effects in healthy adults who have been administered WM updating training with n-back tasks, the most common experimental WM training paradigm. Thanks to this methodological approach that has not been employed in previous meta-analyses in this field, we were able to include effect sizes from all relevant tasks used in the original studies. Altogether 203 effect sizes were derived from 33 published, randomized, controlled trials. In contrast to earlier meta-analyses, we separated task-specific transfer (here untrained n-back tasks) from other WM transfer tasks. Two additional cognitive domains of transfer that we analyzed consisted of fluid intelligence (Gf) and cognitive control tasks. A medium-sized transfer effect was observed to untrained n-back tasks. For other WM tasks, Gf, and cognitive control, the effect sizes were of similar size and very small. Moderator analyses showed no effects of age, training dose, training type (single vs. dual), or WM and Gf transfer task contents (verbal vs. visuospatial). We conclude that a substantial part of transfer following WM training with the n-back task is task-specific and discuss the implications of the results to WM training research.

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Working memory (WM) capacity is associated with various emotional aspects, including states of depression and stress, reactions to emotional stimuli, and regulatory behaviors. We have previously investigated the effects of WM training (WMT) on cognitive functions and brain structures. However, the effects of WMT on emotional states and related neural mechanisms among healthy young adults remain unknown. In the present study, we investigated these effects in young adults who underwent WMT or received no intervention for 4 weeks. Before and after the intervention, subjects completed self-report questionnaires related to their emotional states and underwent scanning sessions in which brain activities related to negative emotions were measured. Compared with controls, subjects who underwent WMT showed reduced anger, fatigue, and depression. Furthermore, WMT reduced activity in the left posterior insula during tasks evoking negative emotion, which was related to anger. It also reduced activity in the left frontoparietal area. These findings show that WMT can reduce negative mood and provide new insight into the clinical applications of WMT, at least among subjects with preclinical-level conditions.

This study tested the common assumption that, to be most effective, working memory (WM) training should be adaptive (i.e., task difficulty is adjusted to individual performance). Indirect evidence for this assumption stems from studies comparing adaptive training to a condition in which tasks are practiced on the easiest level of difficulty only [cf. Klingberg (Trends Cogn Sci 14:317 324, 2010 )], thereby, however, confounding adaptivity and exposure to varying task difficulty. For a more direct test of this hypothesis, we randomly assigned 130 young adults to one of the three WM training procedures (adaptive, randomized, or self-selected change in training task difficulty) or to an active control group. Despite large performance increases in the trained WM tasks, we observed neither transfer to untrained structurally dissimilar WM tasks nor far transfer to reasoning. Surprisingly, neither training nor transfer effects were modulated by training procedure, indicating that exposure to varying levels of task difficulty is sufficient for inducing training gains.

Abstract Can cognitive abilities such as reasoning be improved through working memory training? This question is still highly controversial, with prior studies providing contradictory findings. The lack of theory-driven, systematic approaches and (occasionally serious) methodological shortcomings complicates this debate even more. This review suggests two general mechanisms mediating transfer effects that are (or are not) observed after working memory training: enhanced working memory capacity, enabling people to hold more items in working memory than before training, or enhanced efficiency using the working memory capacity available (e.g., using chunking strategies to remember more items correctly). We then highlight multiple factors that could influence these mechanisms of transfer and thus the success of training interventions. These factors include (1) the nature of the training regime (i.e., intensity, duration, and adaptivity of the training tasks) and, with it, the magnitude of improvements during training, and (2) individual differences in age, cognitive abilities, biological factors, and motivational and personality factors. Finally, we summarize the findings revealed by existing training studies for each of these factors, and thereby present a roadmap for accumulating further empirical evidence regarding the efficacy of working memory training in a systematic way.

Attentional bias is a central feature of many cognitive theories of psychopathology. One of the most frequent methods of investigating such bias has been an emotional analog of the Stroop task. In this task, participants name the colors in which words are printed, and the words vary in their relevance to each theme of psychopathology. The authors review research showing that patients are often slower to name the color of a word associated with concerns relevant to their clinical condition. They address the causes and mechanisms underlying the phenomenon, focusing on J.D. Cohen, K. Dunbar, and J.L. McClelland's (1990) parallel distributed processing model.

Abstract Emotion regulation during social situations plays a pivotal role in health and interpersonal functioning. In this study, we propose a working memory training approach to improve emotion regulation ability. This training promotes an updating function that is a crucial modulated process for emotion regulation. In the present study, the participants in the training group completed a running memory task over 20 days of training. Their working memory capability and high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV) data on pretest and posttest were assessed and analyzed. Compared with the control group, the training group's reaction time in the 2-back working memory task was reduced significantly. In addition, the HF-HRV in the emotion regulation condition was increased after the 20-day training, which indicates that the working memory training effect could transfer to emotion regulation. In other words, working memory training improved emotion regulation ability. Copyright 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

中央执行性系统作为工作记忆的核心成分被认为是可分离的,转换、刷新和抑制被认为是三种相对独立的中央执行功能.在相关研究中,跟踪任务、字母(数字)活动记忆任务和n-back范式一般用来评估刷新功能；评估转化功能所采用的研究范式有:加法-减法转换任务、数字-字母转换任务、数字转换任务以及局部-全局任务；Stroop任务、停止信号任务和Go/No-Go任务被认为是测量和评估抑制功能的经典范式.进一步的研究需要做的工作应该包括:改进相关研究范式,进行工作记忆中央执行系统的全面评估；开发针对学习障碍儿童和老年人等特殊被试的中央执行功能评估工具;建立中央执行系统的认知神经评价指标和体系;开展中央执行系统训练研究.