Hess Thomas M, Smith Brian T, Sharifian Neika
Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University.
Psychol Aging. 2016 Nov;31(7):653-660. doi: 10.1037/pag0000127.
Engagement in cognitively demanding activities has a positive impact on cognitive health in older adults. Previous work, however, has suggested that the costs associated with engagement increase in later life and influence motivation. We examined how subjective perceptions of these costs varied with age and influenced task engagement. The following questions were of specific interest: (a) Are there age differences in subjective perceptions of cognitive costs? (b) What is the impact of these perceptions on engagement? We tested 39 older (ages 65-84) and 37 younger (20-42) adults on a working memory task. Systolic blood pressure responsivity (SBP-R; reflective of effort) and subjective perceptions of task difficulty were assessed. We found that age was associated with an increase in the perceptions of cognitive costs, and that these subjective perceptions had a stronger impact on older adults' engagement than on that of younger adults. More important, this impact was specific to subjective perceptions of cognitive costs. The results provide further support for the hypothesis that increased costs associated with cognitive engagement influence older adults' willingness to engage cognitive resources, and that these costs in part reflect subjective perceptions that are independent of objective task demands. (PsycINFO Database Record
参与认知要求较高的活动对老年人的认知健康有积极影响。然而，先前的研究表明，参与此类活动的成本在晚年有所增加，并会影响动机。我们研究了对这些成本的主观认知如何随年龄变化以及如何影响任务参与度。以下问题尤其值得关注：（a）在对认知成本的主观认知方面是否存在年龄差异？（b）这些认知对参与度有何影响？我们让39名老年人（年龄在65 - 84岁之间）和37名年轻人（20 - 42岁）完成一项工作记忆任务。评估了收缩压反应性（SBP - R；反映努力程度）和对任务难度的主观认知。我们发现，年龄与对认知成本的认知增加有关，并且这些主观认知对老年人参与度的影响比对年轻人的影响更大。更重要的是，这种影响特定于对认知成本的主观认知。这些结果进一步支持了以下假设：与认知参与相关的成本增加会影响老年人投入认知资源的意愿，并且这些成本部分反映了独立于客观任务要求的主观认知。（PsycINFO数据库记录
