Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.
Mem Cognit. 2011 Nov;39(8):1423-34. doi: 10.3758/s13421-011-0119-7.
In the present study, we examined adult age differences in short-term and working memory performance in middle-aged (45-64 years), young-old (65-74 years), old-old (75-89 years), and oldest-old adults (90 years and over) in the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study. Previous research suggests that measures of working memory are more sensitive to age effects than are simple tests of short-term memory Bopp and Verhaeghen (Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences 60:223-233, 2005), Myerson, Emery, White, and Hale, (Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition 10:20-27, 2003). To test this hypothesis, we examined output serial position curves of recall data from three span tasks: forward and backward digit span and size judgment span. Participants' recall patterns in the size judgment span task revealed that the two oldest groups of adults showed the largest decreases in recall performance across output serial positions, but did not differ significantly from each other. Correlation analyses indicated the strongest negative correlation with age occurred with the size judgment span task. Implications of these findings for understanding strategic processing abilities in late life are discussed.
在路易斯安那州健康老龄化研究中，我们研究了中年（45-64 岁）、年轻老年人（65-74 岁）、老年人（75-89 岁）和最老年人（90 岁及以上）的短期记忆和工作记忆表现的成人年龄差异。先前的研究表明，工作记忆的测量比简单的短期记忆测试更能反映年龄效应，Bopp 和 Verhaeghen（《老年心理学杂志》60:223-233，2005），Myerson、Emery、White 和 Hale（《衰老、神经心理学和认知》10:20-27，2003）。为了检验这一假设，我们检查了三个跨度任务的回忆数据的输出序列位置曲线：前向和后向数字跨度以及大小判断跨度。在大小判断跨度任务中，参与者的回忆模式表明，两个最年长的年龄组在输出序列位置上的回忆表现下降最大，但彼此之间没有显著差异。相关分析表明，与年龄的相关性最强的是大小判断跨度任务。这些发现对理解晚年的策略处理能力具有重要意义。
