Université Paris-Sud & MSHE Ledoux, Orsay Cedex, France,
Psychon Bull Rev. 2013 Dec;20(6):1206-12. doi: 10.3758/s13423-013-0438-8.
Can elderly adults automatize a new task? To address this question, 10 older adults each performed 10,080 training trials over 12 sessions on an easy but novel task. The psychological refractory period (PRP) procedure was then used to evaluate whether this highly practiced task, when presented as task 2 along with an unpracticed task 1, could proceed automatically. If automatic, task 2 processing should bypass the bottleneck and, therefore, not be delayed while central attention is devoted to task 1, yielding little dual-task interference. This is exactly what Maquestiaux, Laguë-Beauvais, Ruthruff, and Bherer (Memory and Cognition 36:1262-1282, 2008) previously observed for almost all younger adults, even with half the training on a more difficult task. Although extensive training reduced older adults' reaction times to only 307 ms, a value virtually identical to that attained by Maquestiaux et al.'s (Memory and Cognition 36:1262-1282, 2008) younger adults, the highly practiced task 2 was slowed by 485 ms in the dual-task PRP procedure. Such a large slowing in older adults is striking given the easy tasks and massive amounts of practice. These findings demonstrate a qualitative change with age, in which older adults lose the ability to automatize novel tasks, which cannot be attributed merely to generalized cognitive slowing.
老年人能否自动完成新任务？为了回答这个问题，10 名老年人在 12 个会话中，每个会话完成了 10,080 次简单但新颖任务的训练。然后使用心理不应期（PRP）程序来评估这个经过高度练习的任务，当它作为任务 2 与未练习的任务 1 一起呈现时，是否可以自动进行。如果是自动的，那么任务 2 的处理应该绕过瓶颈，因此不会在中央注意力集中在任务 1 时被延迟，从而产生很小的双重任务干扰。这正是 Maquestiaux、Laguë-Beauvais、Ruthruff 和 Bherer（记忆与认知 36:1262-1282, 2008）之前观察到的几乎所有年轻成年人的情况，即使在更难的任务上只有一半的训练。尽管大量的训练将老年人的反应时间减少到仅 307 毫秒，这个值与 Maquestiaux 等人（记忆与认知 36:1262-1282, 2008）的年轻成年人的反应时间几乎相同，但在双重任务 PRP 程序中，高度练习的任务 2的速度减慢了 485 毫秒。鉴于任务简单且练习量巨大，老年人在这方面的明显减速令人震惊。这些发现表明，随着年龄的增长，会发生质的变化，老年人失去了自动完成新任务的能力，而这种能力不能仅仅归因于普遍的认知减速。
