Effects of Education on Executive Functioning and its Trainability

Abstract

Age-related changes in executive functioning are a main source of cognitive aging. High cognitive reserve, as well as training interventions, have been shown to protect against age-related decline in executive functions. Whether education as one prominent marker of cognitive reserve has a protective effect is, however, ambiguous. Furthermore, little is known about a potential interplay of cognitive reserve and training interventions. The present study, therefore, examines (a) the influence of education on focus-switching as a recently identified executive control process and (b) the impact of education on its trainability. To this end, extreme groups of high- and low-educated younger (age 19–35) and older (age 59–80) adults were selected from a larger training study on focus-switching. Results show that whereas education influences older adults' cognitive performance in focus-switching in a protective way, no effect of education emerged in younger age participants. Training gains, however, are not affected by educational level in either age group.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Angelika Kusmierski and Eva Schwarz for their help with the collection of data.

Notes

Note. Education categories: low = 14 years and less; high = 18 years and more.

^a Younger adults differ significantly in mean age (see discussion).

^b Reported on a 5-point scale (1 =bad to 5 =very good).

^c WST (Schmidt & Metzler, 1992).

Note. Education categories: low = 14 years and less; high = 18 years and more.

^a Younger adults differ significantly in mean age (see discussion).

^b Reported on a 5-point scale (1 =bad to 5 =very good).

^c WST (Schmidt & Metzler, 1992).