Near and Far Transfer in Cognitive Training: A Second-Order Meta-Analysis
Giovanni Sala and Fernand Gobet ran a second-order meta-analysis, a meta-analysis of meta-analyses, in three models: working memory training and near transfer to memory, the same training and far transfer to reasoning, speed and language, and a larger model adding six meta-analyses of video games, music, chess and exergames. Working memory training produced near-transfer effects whose size varied with population. Far-transfer effects were small or null, and after controlling for placebo effects and publication bias the overall far-transfer effect and its true variance were both zero.
Giovanni Sala and Fernand Gobet ran a second-order meta-analysis, a meta-analysis of meta-analyses, in three models: working memory training and near transfer to memory, the same training and far transfer to reasoning, speed and language, and a larger model adding six meta-analyses of video games, music, chess and exergames. Working memory training produced near-transfer effects whose size varied with population. Far-transfer effects were small or null, and after controlling for placebo effects and publication bias the overall far-transfer effect and its true variance were both zero.
Written from the abstract held in the University of Liverpool repository, read 2026-10-23.
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Sala, G., & Gobet, F. (2019). Near and far transfer in cognitive training: A second-order meta-analysis. Collabra: Psychology, 5(1), 18