Pérez Ana I, Fotiadou Georgia, Tsimpli Ianthi
Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 9DA, UK.
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, 18011 Granada, Spain.
Brain Sci. 2022 Oct 14;12(10):1392. doi: 10.3390/brainsci12101392.
Healthy ageing is commonly accompanied by cognitive decline affecting several domains such as executive control, whereas certain verbal skills remain relatively preserved. Interestingly, recent scientific research has shown that some intellectual activities may be linked to beneficial effects, delaying or even alleviating cognitive decline in the elderly. Thirty young (age: = 23) and thirty old (age: = 66) adults were assessed in executive control (switching) and literacy experience (print exposure). First, we tried to confirm whether healthy ageing was generally associated with deficits in switching by looking at mixing cost effects, to then investigate if individual differences in print exposure explained variation in that age-related mixing costs. Both accuracy and reaction times mixing cost indexes demonstrated larger cost in old (but not in young) adults when switching from local to global information. More importantly, this cost effect was not present in old adults with higher print exposure (reaction times). Our findings suggest literacy experience accumulated across the life-span may act as a cognitive reserve proxy to prevent executive control decline.
健康老龄化通常伴随着认知能力下降，影响多个领域，如执行控制，而某些语言技能则相对保持完好。有趣的是，最近的科学研究表明，一些智力活动可能与有益效果有关，可延缓甚至减轻老年人的认知能力下降。对30名年轻人（年龄：=23岁）和30名老年人（年龄：=66岁）进行了执行控制（转换）和读写经验（印刷品接触）评估。首先，我们试图通过观察混合成本效应来确认健康老龄化是否通常与转换缺陷有关，然后研究印刷品接触的个体差异是否能解释与年龄相关的混合成本的变化。当从局部信息转换到全局信息时，准确性和反应时间混合成本指数均显示老年人（而非年轻人）的成本更高。更重要的是，这种成本效应在印刷品接触较多的老年人中不存在（反应时间）。我们的研究结果表明，一生中积累的读写经验可能作为一种认知储备指标，以防止执行控制能力下降。
