PROJECT SUMMARY The vast majority of our nation's aging population will experience some decline in cognitive function with age. Therefore, the development of effective interventions to mitigate age-related cognitive decline is of critical importance in that those interventions might not only impact older adults' cognitive and daily life functioning, but ultimately, contribute to their health, well-being and quality of life. There is accumulating evidence that cognitive interventions targeting working memory are beneficial in that they show generalizing effects that go beyond what has been specifically trained, i.e. transfer effects, resulting in potential implications for public health, especially in an older adult population. Despite the promising results, more research is needed to make cognitive interventions more effective and more robust, and to uncover their underlying mechanisms. The current project addresses two goals. The first goal is pragmatic, with a focus on how to make our cognitive training intervention more effective by focusing on the implementation of motivational features and the intervention's optimal scheduling (i.e., spacing of training sessions). We also will investigate the potential additive effects of working memory interventions that are combined with other approaches, such as self- efficacy interventions or electrical stimulation, investigate the intervention's longitudinal effects, and explore whether any improvements extend to measures of everyday functioning. Second, this project addresses the most important question of any intervention research by investigating the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying improvement using structural and functional neuroimaging. Furthermore, the project will shed light on individual differences as moderating factors for training and transfer success. Given the sparse availability of effective cognitive interventions, the project will have important implications in that it will shed more light on the mechanisms of cognitive plasticity in old age, and serve as groundwork for future national and international grant proposals. For over a decade, the candidate has devoted her interdisciplinary research efforts to the investigation of working memory and related functions, as well as individual differences and age-related cognitive change. She is considered as a leader in the field of cognitive training, and her current projects that are funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA; 1R01AG049006 - 01A1) and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES; R324A150023) aim to contribute to a better understanding of the underlying behavioral and neural mechanisms of learning and transfer by focusing on either older adults (NIA) or children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Even though the specific goals and the populations in the two projects are different, they do share the overall goal to increase the intervention's efficacy and to uncover mediators and moderators of t...