Cognitive Decay

In the first place, to understand brain training one must understand how it pertains to enhancing and maintaining cognitive functions therefore, a close observation of cognition will provide a better understanding of CT. Cognition involves the accumulation of information and turning that information into knowledge. The complex process of cognition includes different cognitive processes, such as attention, decision making, learning, language, memory, reasoning, etc. Much attention is geared towards memory, more pacifically WM because of its connection to “intelligence, information processing, executive function, comprehension, problem solving, and learning in people ranging from infancy to old age” (Cowan, 2014, p.197).

Additionally, WM is prone to limitations which contributes to limiting factors of thoughts, intelligence, problem solving and other cognitive development factors (Oberauer, Farrell, Jarrold, & Lewandowsky, 2016). Therefore, finding ways to strengthen and prolong the abilities of WM, but also other cognitive functions can influence an individual’s intelligence, and

Another way of observing the decay concept is to think of it as “use it or lose it”. As time continues and individuals do not use a cognitive function or they simply start to forget memories because these functions decay over time are examples of “use it or lose it.” The concept of decaying of cognitive functions has been a part of the cognitive revolution very early in studying cognitive functioning (Altmann, & Gray, 2002). In 1950’s, two experiments tested the limitations of WM which is known as the Brown-Peterson Task (BPT) which examine the hypothesis that memory trace decay is a cause of forgetting. To date, researchers use BPT to observe WM skills (Geurten, Vincent, Van der Linden, Coyette, & Meulemans,