The Role of Inhibitory Control in Moderating Working Memory Training Transfer: Evidence from a Preregistered Trial with Older Adults

Most contemporary cognitive training programs incorporate gamified elements, yet the cognitive mechanisms through which gamification influences training and transfer remain poorly understood. Although gamification may enhance engagement, it can also introduce salient, task-irrelevant features that increase demands on executive control, particularly inhibitory control (IC). We therefore tested whether baseline IC moderates transfer following working memory training, hypothesizing that lower IC would constrain transfer by impairing the filtering of irrelevant information during training. We first examined this hypothesis in a secondary analysis of a published working memory training dataset in younger adults. We then tested its robustness in older adulthood in a preregistered, double-blind randomized crossover trial in which healthy older adults completed 40 sessions of N-back training in game and nongame conditions. The results of the latter showed that baseline IC significantly moderated transfer to Untrained N-back and Complex Span outcomes, whereas general cognitive ability did not. These findings identify IC as a key individual-difference factor in cognitive plasticity and suggest that baseline profiling may help tailor interventions for populations at risk of age-related cognitive decline.