What does PASAT do? And How Effective is it?
I'm not sure how to answer your question. The PASAT is was initially designed to measure cognitive recovery in traumatized patients. According to Baddeley and Hitch's model of working memory, a WM task requires a storage and processing component to it (not just plain memorization), and so the PASAT falls into this category, like the n-back task, except it involves a sightly different kind of processing (comparison for the former, and I would say pattern recognition for the latter, assuming you are adept at the task). Ultimately, what it does is it provides a reference measure of working memory capacity.
How effective is it? What effectiveness are you talking about? In terms of working memory, there are many tasks used to investigate working memory, and not all of them are alike. The reading span task, for example, is also a working memory task but involves lexical processing. I guess they are "effective" in different ways.
How effective is it? What effectiveness are you talking about? In terms of working memory, there are many tasks used to investigate working memory, and not all of them are alike. The reading span task, for example, is also a working memory task but involves lexical processing. I guess they are "effective" in different ways.
cognitivefun | 3 years ago
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Thanks for the reply. So is it more a measurement tool than a training tool? Will working with it help my working memory like dual n back?
Kripkefine | 3 years ago
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That's also a question without an easy answer. First of all it isn't clear how far the dual n-back training paradigm goes in terms of actual gains in cognitive capacity and I won't try to make guesses about that. medicalstudent has posted some abstracts by Klingberg et al. on the study of an n-back task study that found cortical changes after the training period. Exactly how much working memory improvement this entails is still hard to say.
As for training, the PASAT places demands on attention, WM, and processing, which is similar to the n-back tasks; indeed, PASAT and n-back performance is correlated. As with any other task, practice leads to improvement in performance (to a certain limit that varies for each person). This begs the question of whether such improvement transfers to a "generally useful" skill (far transfer). I am confident to say that nobody knows the magic formula yet, but even in the very worst case, it trains you to add quickly.
One thing you might consider doing, if you are "training" yourself with the dual n-back task, is to see whether your PASAT performance increases as well, or vice versa. That would be a small hint of skill transfer.
As for training, the PASAT places demands on attention, WM, and processing, which is similar to the n-back tasks; indeed, PASAT and n-back performance is correlated. As with any other task, practice leads to improvement in performance (to a certain limit that varies for each person). This begs the question of whether such improvement transfers to a "generally useful" skill (far transfer). I am confident to say that nobody knows the magic formula yet, but even in the very worst case, it trains you to add quickly.
One thing you might consider doing, if you are "training" yourself with the dual n-back task, is to see whether your PASAT performance increases as well, or vice versa. That would be a small hint of skill transfer.
cognitivefun | 3 years ago
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Kripkefine | 3 years ago
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