Laboratoire de Recherches Integratives en Neurosciences et Psychologie Cognitive.
Department of Psychology.
J Exp Psychol Gen. 2021 Sep;150(9):1722-1740. doi: 10.1037/xge0001020. Epub 2021 Jan 14.
Does aging increase the reliance on central attention to carry out tasks, even when those tasks do not need it? To test the hypothesis of over-reliance on central attention (ORCA), we examined the ability of older adults to entirely bypass ideomotor-compatible (IM) tasks. IM tasks operate automatically for younger adults: The perception of an IM stimulus (e.g., a left-pointing arrow) directly activates the associated response code (e.g., pressing the left key). In a psychological refractory period (PRP) procedure, younger and older adults performed a auditory-vocal Task 1 paired with a visual-manual Task 2 that was either IM or non-IM. Task-2 compatibility (IM vs. non-IM) was manipulated as a between-subjects factor (Experiment 1) and as a within-subjects factor (Experiment 2). Both experiments yielded the counterintuitive finding of larger age differences in dual-task performance when Task 2 was easy (i.e., IM) than when it was difficult (i.e., non-IM), as evidenced by old/young ratio analyses and Brinley plots. Relatedly, whereas younger adults routinely bypassed the bottleneck with an IM Task 2 (as evidenced by a small PRP effect and a high rate of response reversals), older adults did not. The present findings cannot easily be explained by the hypotheses of generalized cognitive slowing and of specific processing deficits but support the ORCA hypothesis. As cognitive decline sets in, older adults begin to try harder: This extra application of central attention compensates for cognitive decline but can result in applying attention when it is not needed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
衰老是否会增加对中央注意力的依赖，即使这些任务不需要？为了检验过度依赖中央注意力（ORCA）的假设，我们考察了老年人完全绕过观念运动兼容（IM）任务的能力。IM 任务对年轻人来说是自动运行的：对 IM 刺激（例如，指向左侧的箭头）的感知直接激活相关的反应代码（例如，按下左键）。在心理不应期（PRP）程序中，年轻和老年成年人执行听觉-发声任务 1，与视觉-手动任务 2 配对，该任务 2 是 IM 还是非 IM。任务 2 的兼容性（IM 与非 IM）作为被试间因素（实验 1）和被试内因素（实验 2）进行操纵。两个实验都产生了意想不到的结果，即当任务 2 较容易（即 IM）时，双任务表现中的年龄差异比任务 2 较难（即非 IM）时更大，这一点从老年/年轻比值分析和 Brinley 图中可以看出。相关地，虽然年轻成年人通常会绕过具有 IM 任务 2 的瓶颈（这表现为 PRP 效应较小且反应反转率较高），但老年成年人却没有。这些发现不能轻易地用一般认知减速和特定处理缺陷的假设来解释，但支持 ORCA 假设。随着认知能力下降，老年人开始更加努力：这种对中央注意力的额外应用补偿了认知能力下降，但可能导致在不需要注意力时应用注意力。（PsycInfo 数据库记录（c）2021 APA，保留所有权利）。
