Younger Adults Show Long-Term Effects of Cognitive Training on Broad Cognitive Abilities Over 2 Years

In the COGITO study (Schmiedek, Lövdén, & Lindenberger, 2010), 101 younger adults practiced 12 tests of perceptual speed, working memory, and episodic memory for over 100 daily 1-hr sessions. The intervention resulted in positive transfer to broad cognitive abilities, including reasoning and episodic memory. Here, we examine whether these ability-based transfer effects are maintained over time. Two years after the end of the training, 80 participants returned for follow-up assessments of the comprehensive battery of transfer tasks. We found reliable positive long-term transfer effects for reasoning and episodic memory, controlling for retest effects by including participants from the original control group. This shows, for the first time, that intensive cognitive training interventions can have long-term broad transfer at the level of cognitive abilities.