Training a person in a new knowledge base or skill set is extremely time consuming and costly, particularly in highly specialized domains such as the military and the intelligence community. Recent research in cognitive neuroscience has suggested that a technique called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has the potential to revolutionize training by enabling learners to acquire new skills faster, more efficiently, and more robustly (Bullard et al., 2011). In this project, we tested the effects of tDCS on two types of memory performance that are critical for learning new skills: associative memory and working memory. Associative memory is memory for the relationship between two items or events. It forms the foundation of all episodic memories, so enhancing associative memory could provide substantial benefits to the speed and robustness of learning new information. We tested the effects of tDCS on associative memory, using a real-world associative memory task: remembering the links between faces and names. Working memory refers to the amount of information that can be held in mind and processed at one time, and it forms the basis for all higher-level cognitive processing. We investigated the degree of transfer between various working memory tasks (the N-back task as a measure of verbal working memory, the rotation-span task as a measure of visuospatial working memory, and Raven's progressive matrices as a measure of fluid intelligence) in order to determine if tDCS-induced facilitation of performance is task-specific or general.
This report summarizes research conducted through the Sandia National Laboratories Robust Automated Knowledge Capture Laboratory Directed Research and Development project. The objective of this project was to advance scientific understanding of the influence of individual cognitive attributes on decision making. The project has developed a quantitative model known as RumRunner that has proven effective in predicting the propensity of an individual to shift strategies on the basis of task and experience related parameters. Three separate studies are described which have validated the basic RumRunner model. This work provides a basis for better understanding human decision making in high consequent national security applications, and in particular, the individual characteristics that underlie adaptive thinking.