Practice effects in repeated cognitive testing - an investigation of the stability of cognitive task performance over time

This dataset contains supplementary data for the publication Bell, L., Lamport, D. J., Field, D. T., Butler, L. T., & Williams, C. M. (2018). Practice effects in nutrition intervention studies with repeated cognitive testing. Nutrition and Healthy Aging, 4(4), 309-322, https://doi.org/10.3233/NHA-170038. The data was collected as part of a PhD investigating the impact of a nutrition intervention on cognitive function in young adults. This dataset was collected to investigate practice-related improvements in cognitive task performance occurring from repeated cognitive testing alone, irrespective of any intervention. Participants performed 6 sessions of cognitive testing (2 sessions spaced 1 hour apart, on 3 separate visits each spaced 1 week apart). The cognitive tasks investigated were episodic memory recall, Stroop, serial subtraction, and Sternberg tasks. Mood changes were recorded using mental fatigue, and PANAS questionnaires. All tasks were programmed and performed on a personal computer using E-Prime software. In addition to performing the cognitive tasks, participants were asked to rate their motivation and the difficulty of each task on a separate questionnaire. The dataset was used to inform on the stability of cognitive task performance over time