ABSTRACT
This review focuses only on those intervention studies that compare pretest to posttest gains of trainees to control groups, who do not participate in the memory training. Cognitive training programs for older adults span a very wide range of research, from case studies with people with dementia to extensive individual practice of specific information processing skills, and from comprehensive group training programs for healthy seniors to broad approaches that increase cognitive engagement. Metamemory represents a person's knowledge about memory, including knowledge about how memory works and knowledge about one's own memory skill. Recent evidence from experimental studies demonstrates that self-evaluative beliefs might not only be changed by memory training, but may actually regulate performance benefits from training, through moderation and mediational processes. The training programs for older adults focus on strategy training, and the strategies that are most often taught are encoding techniques, specifically association, categorical organization, imagery, and methods specific to text or number recall.
