A relatively simple model of the phonological loop (A. D. Baddeley, 1986), a component of working memory, has proved capable of accommodating a great deal of experimental evidence from normal adult participants, children, and neuropsychological patients. Until recently, however, the role of this subsystem in everyday cognitive activities was unclear. In this article the authors review studies of word learning by normal adults and children, neuropsychological patients, and special developmental populations, which provide evidence that the phonological loop plays a crucial role in learning the novel phonological forms of new words. The authors propose that the primary purpose for which the phonological loop evolved is to store unfamiliar sound patterns while more permanent memory records are being constructed. Its use in retaining sequences of familiar words is, it is argued, secondary.

The structure of working memory and its development across the childhood years were investigated in children 4-15 years of age. The children were given multiple assessments of each component of the A. D. Baddeley and G. Hitch (1974) working memory model. Broadly similar linear functions characterized performance on all measures as a function of age. From 6 years onward, a model consisting of 3 distinct but correlated factors corresponding to the working memory model provided a good fit to the data. The results indicate that the basic modular structure of working memory is present from 6 years of age and possibly earlier, with each component undergoing sizable expansion in functional capacity throughout the early and middle school years to adolescence.

In 2014, two groups of scientists published open letters on the efficacy of brain-training interventions, or “brain games,” for improving cognition. The first letter, a consensus statement from an international group of more than 70 scientists, claimed that brain games do not provide a scientifically grounded way to improve cognitive functioning or to stave off cognitive decline. Several months later, an international group of 133 scientists and practitioners countered that the literature is replete with demonstrations of the benefits of brain training for a wide variety of cognitive and everyday activities. How could two teams of scientists examine the same literature and come to conflicting “consensus” views about the effectiveness of brain training? In part, the disagreement might result from different standards used when evaluating the evidence. To date, the field has lacked a comprehensive review of the brain-training literature, one that examines both the quantity and the quality of the evidence according to a well-defined set of best practices. This article provides such a review, focusing exclusively on the use of cognitive tasks or games as a means to enhance performance on other tasks. We specify and justify a set of best practices for such brain-training interventions and then use those standards to evaluate all of the published peer-reviewed intervention studies cited on the websites of leading brain-training companies listed on Cognitive Training Data ( www.cognitivetrainingdata.org ), the site hosting the open letter from brain-training proponents. These citations presumably represent the evidence that best supports the claims of effectiveness. Based on this examination, we find extensive evidence that brain-training interventions improve performance on the trained tasks, less evidence that such interventions improve performance on closely related tasks, and little evidence that training enhances performance on distantly related tasks or that training improves everyday cognitive performance. We also find that many of the published intervention studies had major shortcomings in design or analysis that preclude definitive conclusions about the efficacy of training, and that none of the cited studies conformed to all of the best practices we identify as essential to drawing clear conclusions about the benefits of brain training for everyday activities. We conclude with detailed recommendations for scientists, funding agencies, and policymakers that, if adopted, would lead to better evidence regarding the efficacy of brain-training interventions.

Links have recently been established between measures of educational attainment and both verbal and visuo-spatial aspects of working memory. Relationships have also been identified between specific executive functions—shifting, updating, and inhibition—and scholastic achievement. In the present study, scholastic attainment, shifting, updating, inhibition, and verbal and visuo-spatial working memory were assessed in 11- and 12-year-old children. Exploratory factor analysis identified two executive factors: one associated with updating functions and one associated with inhibition. Updating abilities were closely linked with performance on both verbal and visuo-spatial working memory span tasks. Working memory was closely linked with attainment in English and mathematics, and inhibition was associated with achievement in English, mathematics, and science. Domain-specific associations existed between verbal working memory and attainment in English, and between visuo-spatial working memory and attainment in English, mathematics and science. Implications of the findings for the theoretical analysis of executive functioning, working memory and children's learning are discussed.