Riby Leigh, Perfect Timothy, Stollery Brian
Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, UK.
Q J Exp Psychol A. 2004 Feb;57(2):241-67. doi: 10.1080/02724980343000206.
Previous research demonstrates that older adults are poor at dual tasking, but there is less agreement on whether their decrement is worse than that predicted from single-task performance. This study investigated whether task domain moderates dual-task costs in old age. In two experiments, young and older adults retrieved either previously learned associates (episodic retrieval) or overlearned category members (semantic retrieval) under single or working-memory load conditions, using cued recall (Experiment 1) and recognition (Experiment 2) procedures. In both experiments the proportional costs of dual tasking were age invariant for semantic retrieval but were particularly marked for episodic retrieval, although the size of the age effect was reduced in recognition compared to cued recall. The data suggest that age effects in dual tasking may be domain specific.
先前的研究表明，老年人在执行双重任务方面表现不佳，但对于他们的能力下降是否比单任务表现所预测的更严重，人们的看法不太一致。本研究调查了任务领域是否会调节老年人的双重任务成本。在两项实验中，年轻人和老年人在单任务或工作记忆负荷条件下，通过线索回忆（实验1）和识别（实验2）程序，检索先前学习的联想词（情景检索）或过度学习的类别成员（语义检索）。在两项实验中，双重任务的比例成本在语义检索方面与年龄无关，但在情景检索方面尤为明显，尽管与线索回忆相比，识别中年龄效应的大小有所减小。数据表明，双重任务中的年龄效应可能具有领域特异性。
