Institute of Psychology, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2011 Jan;66(1):15-22. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbq063. Epub 2010 Oct 7.
Implicit skill learning underlies not only motor but also cognitive and social skills; it is therefore an important aspect of life from infancy to old age. We studied aging effects on the time course of implicit skill consolidation.
Young and elderly adults performed a probabilistic implicit sequence-learning task before and after a 12-, a 24-hr, and a 1-week interval. The task enabled us to separate the components of skill learning and consolidation: (a) general skill and (b) sequence-specific learning (SSL).
We found improvement of general skill for the young adults in all delay conditions. The elderly adults also showed enhancement after the 12-hr period, revealing brain plasticity similar to young adults. This improvement disappeared in the 24-hr and the 1-week delay conditions. Regarding SSL, no improvement was found in either age group and at either consolidation intervals. In contrast, sequences-specific knowledge decreased in the elderly group independently of the delay.
These results draw attention to the fact that consolidation is not a single process, rather there are multiple mechanisms that are differentially affected by time course and by aging.
内隐技能学习不仅是运动技能，而且是认知和社交技能的基础；因此，它是从婴儿期到老年期生活的一个重要方面。我们研究了年龄对内隐技能巩固时间进程的影响。
年轻和老年成年人在 12 小时、24 小时和 1 周间隔前后进行了概率性内隐序列学习任务。该任务使我们能够分离技能学习和巩固的组成部分：（a）一般技能和（b）序列特定学习（SSL）。
我们发现，年轻成年人在所有延迟条件下的一般技能都有所提高。老年人在 12 小时后也表现出了增强，显示出类似于年轻人的大脑可塑性。这种改善在 24 小时和 1 周的延迟条件下消失了。至于 SSL，两个年龄组在任何巩固间隔内都没有发现改善。相比之下，序列特定知识在老年人组中独立于延迟而减少。
这些结果提请注意这样一个事实，即巩固不是一个单一的过程，而是有多种机制，这些机制受时间进程和年龄的影响而不同。
