Cognitive Inferential AbilityNCT05341232
A Lego Robot Programming Intervention for Enhancing Older Adult Cognitive Health
A study testing Lego Robot Programming Active Challenges, Lego Robot Programming Procedural Methods and Board Games in people with Cognitive Inferential Ability, run by National Taiwan University Hospital at 2 sites in Taiwan.
Trial summary
The population in Taiwan is rapidly aging with an increasing proportion of older persons who experience cognitive difficulties but are otherwise physically healthy. As such there is a critical and urgent need for effective interventions to enhance older adult cognitive health. Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Ages 65 years and olderHealthy volunteers can take part
- Conditions the study is for
- Cognitive Inferential Ability
- What is being tested?
- Lego Robot Programming Active Challenges, Lego Robot Programming Procedural Methods and Board Games
- Type of treatment
- Lifestyle or therapy programme
- Could I receive a placebo?
- Yes, some participants may receive a placebo
- How many people
- 48 participants
- Where
- 2 sitesTaiwan
- Study dates
- 1 Sep 2021to 20 Mar 2025
- Phase
- Interventional
- Are there results?
- None posted in the registry
Key requirements
Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.
- Ages 65 years and older
- All sexes
- Healthy volunteers accepted
- Older adult
Who may be able to join
- Literate in Mandarin and Taiwanese
- Willing and able to participate in this research protocol in its entirety.
- Age >65
Who cannot join
- Participated in cognitive-related training in the past two months.
- Diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI)
- Severe psychological or behavioral disorder that would seriously interfere with the progress of activity
- History of degenerative cognitive disorder.
- Counter-indications for MRI scanning.
Trial locations and contacts
2 sites in 1 country.
Taiwan2 sites
College of Medicine, National Taiwan University
Taipei, 10051
National Taiwan Science Education Center
Taipei, 11165
About this study
The population in Taiwan is rapidly aging with an increasing proportion of older persons who experience cognitive difficulties but are otherwise physically healthy. As such there is a critical and urgent need for effective interventions to enhance older adult cognitive health. This present sub-project is part of the larger integrated project that will address this need by conducting cognitive training interventions on community older adults using the National Taiwan Science Education Center (NTSEC) as the public engagement window and collecting research behavioral and neurophysiological data to empirically and objectively examine intervention efficacies. In this sub-project, the investigators implement a clinical trial to evaluate an open-ended, flexible cognitive training intervention in middle to older adults aged 50 yrs or above using a 12-week Lego Robot Programming (Lego RP) protocol developed in the investigators' lab at the Graduate Institute of Brain and Mind Sciences, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University. The Lego RP training requires participants to generate and update abstract mental hypotheses of the effect of program codes on the physical actions of a robot based on how the robot behaves. Such mental processing is thought to drive flexible coordination between neural processes in the brain and benefit a broad range of cognitive abilities in older adults. The investigators target to obtain pre- and post-intervention behavioral and neurophysiological data (including brain imaging indicators) in 40 experimental participants, 40 active control participants, and 40 passive control participants over a period of 3 years.
Read the detailed description
The population in Taiwan is rapidly aging with an increasing proportion of older persons who experience cognitive difficulties but are otherwise physically healthy. As such there is a critical and urgent need for effective interventions to enhance older adult cognitive health. This present sub-project is part of the larger integrated project that will address this need by conducting cognitive training interventions on community older adults using the National Taiwan Science Education Center (NTSEC) as the public engagement window and collecting research behavioral and neurophysiological data to empirically and objectively examine intervention efficacies. In this sub-project, the investigators implement a clinical trial to evaluate an open-ended, flexible cognitive training intervention in middle to older adults aged 50 yrs or above using a 12-week Lego Robot Programming (Lego RP) protocol developed in the investigators' lab at the Graduate Institute of Brain and Mind Sciences, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University. The Lego RP training requires participants to generate and update abstract mental hypotheses of the effect of program codes on the physical actions of a robot based on how the robot behaves. Such mental processing is thought to drive flexible coordination between neural processes in the brain and benefit a broad range of cognitive abilities in older adults. The investigators target to obtain pre- and post-intervention behavioral and neurophysiological data (including brain imaging indicators) in 40 experimental participants, 40 active control participants, and 40 passive control participants over a period of 3 years. The investigators will also coordinate with the other sub-projects to assign participants to the different interventions involved as well as research data collection, which is shared. In contrast to previous studies of older adult cognitive training, the investigators expect this present approach, which leverages neurocognitive principles, to result in notable transfer between different cognitive abilities, and meaningful impact on daily functioning. The NTSEC recently seeks to engage the public, particularly children and older adults in STEAM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) to inspire and equip the population with the spirit of learning, discovery, and challenge-seeking, which is thought to raise mental resilience. Thus, the investigators' public outreach and research goals are highly complementary and the work is expected to yield more ecologically valid research data on a novel class of cognitive interventions for cognitive aging using psychological and brain imaging techniques to bridge critical neural mechanistic knowledge gaps. In addition, the research study will apply real public education benefits in society for those approximately 300 older participants who will participate in this study.
- Conditions
- Cognitive Inferential Ability
- Being tested
- Lego Robot Programming Active Challenges, Lego Robot Programming Procedural Methods, Board Games
- Keywords
- Aging, Cognitive Training Intervention, Lego Robot, Clinical Trial, Public Education, Psychological Testing, Brain Imaging
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
Lego Robot Programming Active ChallengesBehavioural
Participants will adapt their own Lego robot programs to achieve specific task goals.
Lego Robot Programming Procedural MethodsBehavioural
Participating will undergo Lego robot programming training that engages them to follow fixed programming coding steps.
Board GamesBehavioural
Participants will play board games with each other.
| Study group | Role | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| Problem-Solving Training | Experimental | Participants will learn to program LEGO robots and will be encouraged to actively solve problems. Receives: Behavioral: Lego Robot Programming Active Challenges; Behavioral: Lego Robot Programming Procedural Methods |
| Step-By-Step Training | Active comparator | Participants will learn to program LEGO robots and will be instructed step by step. Receives: Behavioral: Lego Robot Programming Procedural Methods |
| Board Games | Placebo comparator | Participants will play boards games under a schedule matching the Experimental and Active Comparator arms. Receives: Behavioral: Board Games |
What is being measured
The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.
Changes of neural functional activity during inferential processing
Participants will undergo a Rule Inference fMRI task to infer underlying rules that map color configurations of circles in a triangular arrangement to a target color category within as few tries as possible under active or passive conditions. The goal for participants will be to infer the cue-category association rules using as few cues as possible. The primary outcome measure here is the degree of neural response estimate change in blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal pre- and post-intervention.
Measured: Week 0, Week 12
Changes of overall accuracy during inferential processing
Changes from pre- to post-intervention in participant overall accuracy in identifying latent rules in the Rule Inference fMRI task.
Measured: Week 0, Week 12
Changes of learning rate during inferential processing
Changes from pre- to post-intervention in participant number of trials to criterion in the Rule Inference fMRI task.
Measured: Week 0, Week 12
Changes of strategic performance during inferential processing
Changes from pre- to post-intervention in participant coefficients of expression of modeled response strategies in the Rule Inference fMRI task will be assessed.
Measured: Week 0, Week 12
Changes in the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score
Pre- to post-intervention changes in participant MoCA score. Score range from 0 to 30 with higher scores indicating better cognitive ability.
Measured: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Logical Memory I & II
Score range 0 - 75. Higher score indicates better verbal episodic memory.
Measured: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Face Memory
Score range 0 - 48. Higher score indicates better visual face memory.
Measured: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Verbal Paired Memory
Score range 0 - 32. Higher score indicates better verbal memory and learning.
Measured: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Family Pictures I & II
Score range 0 - 64. Higher score indicates better visual memory and learning.
Measured: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Word Lists I & II
Score range 0 - 36. Higher score indicates better verbal memory and learning. For II, recall score range is 0 to 8; recognition score range is 0 to 24.
Measured: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Visual Reproduction I & II
Score range 0 - 104. Higher score indicates better visual memory. For II, recall score range is 0-104; recognition score range is 0-48.
Measured: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Spatial Span
Score range 0 - 32. Higher score indicates better spatial memory.
Measured: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Digit Span
Score range 0 - 32. Higher score indicates better auditory memory.
Measured: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Vocabulary
Score range 0 - 66. Higher score indicates better vocabulary.
Measured: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Digit Symbol
Score range 0 - 133. Higher score indicates better processing speed.
Measured: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Block Design
Score range 0 - 68. Higher score indicates better visual processing.
Measured: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Arithmetic
Score range 0 - 22. Higher score indicates better mathematical computation ability.
Measured: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Matrix Reasoning
Score range 0 - 26. Higher score indicates better reasoning.
Measured: Week 0, Week 12
Secondary outcomes (1)
Changes of neural functional activity during resting-state
Brain functional activity measured using fMRI during rest with eyes-open.
Measured: Week 0, Week 12
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted22 Apr 2022
- Study start1 Sep 2021
- Primary completion20 Mar 2025
- Study completion20 Mar 2025
Resources
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govThe registry entry this page is built from, with its full change history.
- Other trials for Cognitive Inferential AbilityStudies of the same condition, open and under way.
- More trials run by National Taiwan University HospitalThe sponsor's other registered studies.
- What the trial phases meanHow a treatment moves from first tests in people to approval.
More details
For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.
Study design
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase N/A
- Primary purpose
- Basic science
- Allocation
- Randomised
- Intervention model
- Parallel groups
- Masking
- Triple blind
- Who is masked
- Participant, Investigator, Outcomes assessor
- Enrolment
- 48 participants (actual)
Sponsor and investigators
- Lead sponsor
- National Taiwan University Hospital
- Sponsor type
- University, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, National Taiwan University, National Taiwan Science Education Center
- Responsible party
- Sponsor
- Investigators
- Joshua OS Goh, Ph. D., Principal investigator, National Taiwan University
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT05341232
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- 202103148RINC
- Status last verified
- Jul 2025
- First submitted
- 6 Apr 2022
- Last updated
- 5 Feb 2026
- Results posted
- No
- Data monitoring committee
- No
- FDA-regulated drug
- No
- FDA-regulated device
- No
- Individual data sharing
- Yes: Data that can be shared include anonymized neuropsychological assessment scores, cognitive behavioral performance scores, brain imaging data that have been published.
Study at a glance
From the registry record, last updated by the sponsor on 5 Feb 2026. Recruitment status is as the sponsor reported it: confirm with the study team.
- Official title
- A Lego Robot Programming Intervention for Enhancing Older Adult Cognitive Health
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT05341232
- Acronym / sponsor ID
- 202103148RINC
- Conditions
- Cognitive Inferential Ability
- Keywords
- Aging, Cognitive Training Intervention, Lego Robot, Clinical Trial, Public Education, Psychological Testing, Brain Imaging
- Study type
- Interventional
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Enrolment
- 48 participants (actual)
- Lead sponsor
- National Taiwan University HospitalUniversity, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, National Taiwan University, National Taiwan Science Education Center
- Study start
- 1 Sep 2021 (actual)
- Primary completion
- 20 Mar 2025 (actual)
- Study completion
- 20 Mar 2025 (actual)
- First posted
- 22 Apr 2022 (actual)
- Results
- Not posted in the source record
Clinical summary
The research question as the sponsor registered it. This describes what the study plans to test, not what it found.
The population in Taiwan is rapidly aging with an increasing proportion of older persons who experience cognitive difficulties but are otherwise physically healthy. As such there is a critical and urgent need for effective interventions to enhance older adult cognitive health. This present sub-project is part of the larger integrated project that will address this need by conducting cognitive training interventions on community older adults using the National Taiwan Science Education Center (NTSEC) as the public engagement window and collecting research behavioral and neurophysiological data to empirically and objectively examine intervention efficacies. In this sub-project, the investigators implement a clinical trial to evaluate an open-ended, flexible cognitive training intervention in middle to older adults aged 50 yrs or above using a 12-week Lego Robot Programming (Lego RP) protocol developed in the investigators' lab at the Graduate Institute of Brain and Mind Sciences, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University. The Lego RP training requires participants to generate and update abstract mental hypotheses of the effect of program codes on the physical actions of a robot based on how the robot behaves. Such mental processing is thought to drive flexible coordination between neural processes in the brain and benefit a broad range of cognitive abilities in older adults. The investigators target to obtain pre- and post-intervention behavioral and neurophysiological data (including brain imaging indicators) in 40 experimental participants, 40 active control participants, and 40 passive control participants over a period of 3 years.
Detailed description
The population in Taiwan is rapidly aging with an increasing proportion of older persons who experience cognitive difficulties but are otherwise physically healthy. As such there is a critical and urgent need for effective interventions to enhance older adult cognitive health. This present sub-project is part of the larger integrated project that will address this need by conducting cognitive training interventions on community older adults using the National Taiwan Science Education Center (NTSEC) as the public engagement window and collecting research behavioral and neurophysiological data to empirically and objectively examine intervention efficacies. In this sub-project, the investigators implement a clinical trial to evaluate an open-ended, flexible cognitive training intervention in middle to older adults aged 50 yrs or above using a 12-week Lego Robot Programming (Lego RP) protocol developed in the investigators' lab at the Graduate Institute of Brain and Mind Sciences, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University. The Lego RP training requires participants to generate and update abstract mental hypotheses of the effect of program codes on the physical actions of a robot based on how the robot behaves. Such mental processing is thought to drive flexible coordination between neural processes in the brain and benefit a broad range of cognitive abilities in older adults. The investigators target to obtain pre- and post-intervention behavioral and neurophysiological data (including brain imaging indicators) in 40 experimental participants, 40 active control participants, and 40 passive control participants over a period of 3 years. The investigators will also coordinate with the other sub-projects to assign participants to the different interventions involved as well as research data collection, which is shared. In contrast to previous studies of older adult cognitive training, the investigators expect this present approach, which leverages neurocognitive principles, to result in notable transfer between different cognitive abilities, and meaningful impact on daily functioning. The NTSEC recently seeks to engage the public, particularly children and older adults in STEAM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) to inspire and equip the population with the spirit of learning, discovery, and challenge-seeking, which is thought to raise mental resilience. Thus, the investigators' public outreach and research goals are highly complementary and the work is expected to yield more ecologically valid research data on a novel class of cognitive interventions for cognitive aging using psychological and brain imaging techniques to bridge critical neural mechanistic knowledge gaps. In addition, the research study will apply real public education benefits in society for those approximately 300 older participants who will participate in this study.
Study design
- Primary purpose
- Basic science
- Allocation
- Randomised
- Intervention model
- Parallel groups
- Masking
- Triple blind (participant, investigator, outcomes assessor)
- Number of arms
- 3
| Arm | Type | Receives |
|---|---|---|
| Problem-Solving Training | Experimental | Behavioral: Lego Robot Programming Active Challenges, Behavioral: Lego Robot Programming Procedural MethodsParticipants will learn to program LEGO robots and will be encouraged to actively solve problems. |
| Step-By-Step Training | Active comparator | Behavioral: Lego Robot Programming Procedural MethodsParticipants will learn to program LEGO robots and will be instructed step by step. |
| Board Games | Placebo comparator | Behavioral: Board GamesParticipants will play boards games under a schedule matching the Experimental and Active Comparator arms. |
Who may qualify
- Ages
- 65 years and older
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepted
- Age groups
- Older adult
Key inclusion criteria (3 listed)
- Literate in Mandarin and Taiwanese
- Willing and able to participate in this research protocol in its entirety.
- Age >65
Key exclusion criteria (5 listed)
- Participated in cognitive-related training in the past two months.
- Diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI)
- Severe psychological or behavioral disorder that would seriously interfere with the progress of activity
- History of degenerative cognitive disorder.
- Counter-indications for MRI scanning.
Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening; this overview does not establish that a patient qualifies. Full inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Interventions
| Intervention | Type | Arms |
|---|---|---|
| Lego Robot Programming Active ChallengesParticipants will adapt their own Lego robot programs to achieve specific task goals. | Behavioural | Problem-Solving Training |
| Lego Robot Programming Procedural MethodsParticipating will undergo Lego robot programming training that engages them to follow fixed programming coding steps. | Behavioural | Problem-Solving Training, Step-By-Step Training |
| Board GamesParticipants will play board games with each other. | Behavioural | Board Games |
Primary outcome
Changes of neural functional activity during inferential processing
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Participants will undergo a Rule Inference fMRI task to infer underlying rules that map color configurations of circles in a triangular arrangement to a target color category within as few tries as possible under active or passive conditions. The goal for participants will be to infer the cue-category association rules using as few cues as possible. The primary outcome measure here is the degree of neural response estimate change in blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal pre- and post-intervention.
Changes of overall accuracy during inferential processing
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Changes from pre- to post-intervention in participant overall accuracy in identifying latent rules in the Rule Inference fMRI task.
Changes of learning rate during inferential processing
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Changes from pre- to post-intervention in participant number of trials to criterion in the Rule Inference fMRI task.
Changes of strategic performance during inferential processing
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Changes from pre- to post-intervention in participant coefficients of expression of modeled response strategies in the Rule Inference fMRI task will be assessed.
Changes in the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Pre- to post-intervention changes in participant MoCA score. Score range from 0 to 30 with higher scores indicating better cognitive ability.
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Logical Memory I & II
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Score range 0 - 75. Higher score indicates better verbal episodic memory.
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Face Memory
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Score range 0 - 48. Higher score indicates better visual face memory.
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Verbal Paired Memory
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Score range 0 - 32. Higher score indicates better verbal memory and learning.
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Family Pictures I & II
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Score range 0 - 64. Higher score indicates better visual memory and learning.
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Word Lists I & II
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Score range 0 - 36. Higher score indicates better verbal memory and learning. For II, recall score range is 0 to 8; recognition score range is 0 to 24.
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Visual Reproduction I & II
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Score range 0 - 104. Higher score indicates better visual memory. For II, recall score range is 0-104; recognition score range is 0-48.
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Spatial Span
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Score range 0 - 32. Higher score indicates better spatial memory.
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Digit Span
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Score range 0 - 32. Higher score indicates better auditory memory.
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Vocabulary
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Score range 0 - 66. Higher score indicates better vocabulary.
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Digit Symbol
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Score range 0 - 133. Higher score indicates better processing speed.
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Block Design
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Score range 0 - 68. Higher score indicates better visual processing.
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Arithmetic
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Score range 0 - 22. Higher score indicates better mathematical computation ability.
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Matrix Reasoning
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Score range 0 - 26. Higher score indicates better reasoning.
1 secondary outcome
Changes of neural functional activity during resting-state
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Results and safety
The study is completed, but results are not available in the source record. That does not mean the treatment did or did not work.
Research links
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govLast updated by the sponsor 5 Feb 2026.
- Individual participant dataSharing planned: Yes. Data that can be shared include anonymized neuropsychological assessment scores, cognitive behavioral performance scores, brain imaging data that have been published.
Referral and contact
AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals. Contact the study team or a site listed below; they decide who can take part. This study is not recruiting at the moment.
Joshua OS Goh, Ph. D. principal investigator
National Taiwan University
2 sites in 1 country: see every site and its status.
Questions about this trial
What is this clinical trial studying?
A study testing Lego Robot Programming Active Challenges, Lego Robot Programming Procedural Methods and Board Games in people with Cognitive Inferential Ability, run by National Taiwan University Hospital at 2 sites in Taiwan.
The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.
Who may be eligible to take part?
The sponsor lists 3 inclusion and 5 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.
Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?
The record says: finished, as of the sponsor's last update on 5 Feb 2026. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.
Where is the study taking place?
The record lists 2 sites in Taiwan. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.
What are the possible benefits and risks?
They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. Some participants in this study may receive a placebo. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.
Are results available for this study?
The study is completed, but results are not available in the source record. That does not mean the treatment did or did not work.
How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?
The record lists no contact. The official record names the sponsor, who can be asked directly. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.
What does the primary outcome measure?
Changes of neural functional activity during inferential processing (time frame: Week 0, Week 12). The study lists 18 primary outcomes in all. It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.
Where can I read the original study information?
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?
No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.
How often is this information updated?
AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 5 Feb 2026.