Salthouse T A, Mitchell D R, Skovronek E, Babcock R L
School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta 30332.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 1989 May;15(3):507-16. doi: 10.1037//0278-7393.15.3.507.
Three predictions were derived from the hypothesis that adult age differences in certain measures of cognitive functioning are attributable to age-related reductions in a processing resource such as working-memory capacity. Each prediction received at least some degree of empirical support in a study involving 120 males ranging between 20 and 79 years of age. First, older adults exhibited greater impairments of performance than did young adults when task complexity increased and more demands were placed on the limited processing resources; second, the magnitudes of these complexity effects were highly correlated across verbal (reasoning) and spatial (paper folding) tasks. Finally, statistical control of an index of a working-memory processing resource attenuated the effects of age on the measures of cognitive performance. It was concluded that further progress in understanding the mechanisms of the relation between age and cognitive functioning will require improved conceptualizations of the nature of working memory or other hypothesized mediating constructs.
在某些认知功能测量中，成年人的年龄差异可归因于诸如工作记忆容量等处理资源随年龄增长而减少。在一项涉及120名年龄在20至79岁之间男性的研究中，每个预测都至少得到了一定程度的实证支持。首先，当任务复杂性增加且对有限的处理资源提出更多要求时，老年人比年轻人表现出更大的能力受损；其次，这些复杂性效应的大小在言语（推理）和空间（折纸）任务中高度相关。最后，对工作记忆处理资源指标的统计控制减弱了年龄对认知表现测量的影响。得出的结论是，要在理解年龄与认知功能之间关系的机制方面取得进一步进展，将需要对工作记忆或其他假设的中介结构的性质进行改进的概念化。
