Salthouse T A
School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta.
Annu Rev Gerontol Geriatr. 1987;7:135-58.
A major theme of this chapter has been that specific experience is an extremely important variable moderating human performance and one that should be considered when attempting to examine any type of individual differences in behavior. It is possible that differential experience is responsible for the distinct age trends evident in process, or fluid, as opposed to product, or crystallized, aspects of cognitive functioning; and it is certainly the case that level of experience is an important consideration in attempting to generalize from laboratory situations to real world activities. Research has convincingly demonstrated that adults of all ages benefit from experience; thus, comparisons of experienced older adults with inexperienced young adults will probably favor the former in many situations. The mechanisms responsible for improvement associated with experience are still not known--particularly whether or not they are the same as those involved in the decline in performance associated with increased age--but a promising new approach, the Molar Equivalence-Molecular Decomposition Strategy, may eventually provide answers to this question. And finally, the evidence still appears inconclusive on the issue of whether differential experience is a causal factor in the age differences in cognitive functioning.
本章的一个主要主题是，特定经历是调节人类表现的一个极其重要的变量，在试图研究行为中的任何类型的个体差异时都应予以考虑。不同的经历可能是导致认知功能的过程（即流体智力）而非结果（即晶体智力）方面明显的年龄趋势差异的原因；而且在试图从实验室情境推广到现实世界活动时，经历水平无疑是一个重要的考虑因素。研究已经令人信服地表明，所有年龄段的成年人都能从经历中受益；因此，在许多情况下，将经验丰富的老年人与缺乏经验的年轻人进行比较可能会更有利于前者。与经历相关的改善机制仍然未知——特别是它们是否与随着年龄增长而导致表现下降的机制相同——但一种有前景的新方法，即摩尔等效-分子分解策略，最终可能会为这个问题提供答案。最后，关于不同经历是否是认知功能年龄差异的一个因果因素，证据似乎仍然没有定论。
