The term “cognitive training ” conjures up the image of young students in a classroom, receiving instruction from a teacher. There is the implicit assumption that the young students did not possess cognitive abilities prior to cognitive training, so that the focus of training is on de novo learning. The critical question is whether or not, as a result of cognitive training, there is acquisition of specific knowledge and skills. However, cognitive training is being increasingly employed as a research paradigm across the life span. Questions regarding the purpose and effectiveness of cognitive training at later life stages often are quite different from those relating to the young students. Cognitive training in old age has recently been of particular interest, given the normative pattern of intellectual decline in this developmental period.

This chapter provides a selective review of recent research on cognitive training in later adulthood. The research literature will be reviewed with regard to five major questions: What cognitive abilities have been the targets of cognitivetraining research? What is modified as a function of training? How large is the magnitude of the training effect? Who benefits from cognitive training? Are training effects maintained over time? The literature review will focus on the psychometric mental abilities and the cognitive problem-solving skills that have been studied via a training paradigm. The chapters in this volume by Bäckman (Chapter 28), West (Chapter 30), and Yesavage, Lapp, and Sheikh (Chapter 31) review the memory-training literature.