Donders Institute for Brain, Behavior and Cognition, Department of Neuropsychology and Rehabilitation Psychology, Radboud University, Postbus 9104, 6500, HE, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Visual Attention Lab, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Mem Cognit. 2021 Aug;49(6):1220-1235. doi: 10.3758/s13421-021-01157-2. Epub 2021 Apr 19.
Sequence learning effects in simple perceptual and motor tasks are largely unaffected by normal aging. However, less is known about sequence learning in more complex cognitive tasks that involve attention and memory processes and how this changes with age. In this study, we examined whether incidental and intentional sequence learning would facilitate hybrid visual and memory search in younger and older adults. Observers performed a hybrid search task, in which they memorized four or 16 target objects and searched for any of those target objects in displays with four or 16 objects. The memorized targets appeared either in a repeating sequential order or in random order. In the first experiment, observers were not told about the sequence before the experiment. Only a subset of younger adults and none of the older adults incidentally learned the sequence. The "learners" acquired explicit knowledge about the sequence and searched faster in the sequence compared to random condition. In the second experiment, observers were told about the sequence before the search task. Both younger and older adults searched faster in sequence blocks than random blocks. Older adults, however, showed this sequence-learning effect only in blocks with smaller target sets. Our findings indicate that explicit sequence knowledge can facilitate hybrid search, as it allows observers to predict the next target and restrict their visual and memory search. In older age, the sequence-learning effect is constrained by load, presumably due to age-related decline in executive functions.
在简单的感知和运动任务中，序列学习效应在正常衰老过程中基本不受影响。然而，对于涉及注意力和记忆过程的更复杂认知任务中的序列学习，以及随着年龄的变化这种学习如何变化，人们知之甚少。在这项研究中，我们研究了偶然和有意的序列学习是否会促进年轻和老年成年人的混合视觉和记忆搜索。观察者执行混合搜索任务，在此任务中，他们记忆四个或 16 个目标对象，并在显示四个或 16 个对象的显示器中搜索这些目标对象中的任何一个。记忆的目标对象要么以重复的顺序出现，要么以随机顺序出现。在第一个实验中，观察者在实验前没有被告知序列。只有一小部分年轻成年人偶然学习了序列，而没有老年人。“学习者”获得了关于序列的明确知识，并且与随机条件相比，在序列中搜索更快。在第二个实验中，观察者在搜索任务之前被告知了序列。年轻和老年成年人在序列块中比在随机块中搜索更快。然而，老年人仅在目标集较小的块中显示出这种序列学习效应。我们的发现表明，明确的序列知识可以促进混合搜索，因为它允许观察者预测下一个目标并限制他们的视觉和记忆搜索。在老年时，序列学习效应受到负荷的限制，这可能是由于与年龄相关的执行功能下降所致。
