School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
J Neuropsychol. 2022 Sep;16(3):481-497. doi: 10.1111/jnp.12279. Epub 2022 May 21.
The Cognitive Estimation Test (CET) is commonly used in neuropsychological assessment. It is typically assumed to load on executive functions, although research has shown that CET performance also depends on access to semantic knowledge. It is unknown whether these contributions vary with age. It is important to examine this question as these abilities have divergent life course trajectories: executive functions tend to decline as people age but semantic knowledge continues to accrue. In addition, previous research has not examined potential contributions to CET performance from semantic control abilities, that is cognitive control processes involved specifically in the retrieval and use of semantic information. To address these questions, we investigated cognitive predictors of CET performance in healthy young and older adults. We found that better executive function was associated with more accurate estimation in both age groups. However, the effect of semantic knowledge on CET performance was significantly larger in older people, having no predictive power in the younger group. The ability to detect weak semantic associations, which is thought to index controlled search and retrieval of semantic information, also had divergent effects on CET performance in the two age groups. Our results provide empirical support for the idea that older people are more reliant on semantic knowledge when estimating quantities, which may explain why age-related decline in CET scores is not typically found. We conclude that deficits on the CET may be indicative either of semantic or executive impairments, particularly in older age groups.
认知估计测试（CET）常用于神经心理学评估。它通常被认为与执行功能有关，尽管研究表明 CET 的表现也依赖于对语义知识的获取。目前尚不清楚这些贡献是否会随年龄而变化。研究这个问题很重要，因为这些能力具有不同的人生轨迹：随着年龄的增长，执行功能往往会下降，但语义知识仍在不断积累。此外，之前的研究并未探讨语义控制能力对 CET 表现的潜在贡献，即专门涉及检索和使用语义信息的认知控制过程。为了解决这些问题，我们调查了健康的年轻和老年人 CET 表现的认知预测因素。我们发现，在两个年龄组中，更好的执行功能与更准确的估计相关。然而，语义知识对 CET 表现的影响在老年人中明显更大，而在年轻人中则没有预测力。检测弱语义关联的能力，这被认为是对语义信息的受控搜索和检索的指标，在两个年龄组中对 CET 表现也有不同的影响。我们的研究结果为这样一种观点提供了经验支持，即老年人在估计数量时更依赖语义知识，这可能解释了为什么 CET 分数与年龄相关的下降并不常见。我们得出结论，CET 缺陷可能表明存在语义或执行障碍，特别是在老年人群中。
