Psychology Department, University of New Mexico.
Psychol Aging. 2013 Dec;28(4):1024-31. doi: 10.1037/a0034937.
Task choice processes in older (60+ years) and younger (18-30 years) adults were compared using a voluntary task switching procedure (Arrington & Logan, 2004). To assess age-related differences in task representation maintenance, preparation times were varied across a large range of response-to-stimulus intervals (100, 500, 1,000, and 5,000 ms) and the environmental influence on task selection was varied by repeating or changing stimuli from trial to trial. Older adults switched less frequently than younger adults and this effect was the same at each RSI. Younger adults were more likely to switch tasks when the stimulus changed than when it repeated suggesting that they used a different process to determine task choices, either endogenous task selection or environmentally supported task repetitions. Older adults' task selection was unaffected by stimulus repetitions indicating that they were less flexible with the processing they used to guide task selection. These findings are consistent with previous observations of age-related increases in goal shielding, but not with age-related deficits in task goal maintenance. Robust age differences in switch costs were observed across RSIs suggesting that task reconfiguration processes are different following endogenous than exogenous task selection.
使用自愿任务转换程序（Arrington & Logan, 2004）比较了老年人（60 岁以上）和年轻人（18-30 岁）的任务选择过程。为了评估任务表示维持方面的年龄相关差异，通过在较大的反应-刺激间隔范围内（100、500、1000 和 5000 毫秒）和通过在试验中重复或改变刺激来改变环境对任务选择的影响来改变准备时间。老年人的转换频率低于年轻人，并且这种影响在每个 RSI 中都是相同的。当刺激改变而不是重复时，年轻人更有可能切换任务，这表明他们使用了不同的过程来确定任务选择，无论是内源性任务选择还是环境支持的任务重复。老年人的任务选择不受刺激重复的影响，这表明他们在用于指导任务选择的处理上的灵活性较低。这些发现与先前关于目标屏蔽随年龄增长而增加的观察结果一致，但与任务目标维持随年龄增长而下降的观察结果不一致。在整个 RSI 中观察到切换成本的显著年龄差异，这表明内源性任务选择后和外源性任务选择后的任务重新配置过程不同。
