MEMORY TRAINING IN THE COMMUNITY: EVALUATIONS BY PARTICIPANTS AND EFFECTS ON METAMEMORY

This study examined 129 participants in seven types of memory training programs in Belgium. It was found that more than half of the subjects participated because they felt their memory was deteriorating or because they were afraid of memory deterioration. After completion of the program, subjects rated the training as being somewhat too short, as useful for their daily lives, as very pleasant, and as being of adequate difficulty. Almost all subjects indicated they would like to take part in a follow‐up training program. Forty‐one percent of the subjects indicated increased memory awareness as the main effect; other effects often cited included the discovery that subjects were not the only ones with complaints, increased knowledge of memory functioning, and the possibility for self‐development. However, no pre‐to‐posttraining effect could be found on scales of the Memory Functioning Questionnaire, except for a small (but significant) increase in self‐reported frequency of forgetting.