Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University, Psychology B Building, Stony Brook, NY, 11794, USA.
Mem Cognit. 2023 Oct;51(7):1580-1592. doi: 10.3758/s13421-023-01413-7. Epub 2023 Mar 30.
Past research conducted primarily in young adults has demonstrated the utility of cognitive offloading for benefitting performance of memory-based tasks, particularly at high memory loads. At the same time, older adults show declines in a variety of memory abilities, including subtle changes in short-term memory, suggesting that cognitive offloading could also benefit performance of memory-based tasks in this group. To this end, 94 participants (62 young adults, 32 older adults) were tested on a retrospective audiovisual short-term memory task in two blocked conditions. Offloading was permitted in the offloading choice condition but not in the internal memory condition. Performance was improved for both age groups in the offloading choice condition compared to the internal memory condition. Moreover, the choice to use the offloading strategy was similar across age groups at high memory loads, and use of the offloading strategy benefitted performance for young and older adults similarly. These data suggest that older adults can make effective use of cognitive offloading to rescue performance of memory-based activities, and invites future research on the benefits of cognitive offloading for older adults in other, more complex tasks where age-related memory impairment is expected to be more prominent.
过去主要在年轻人中进行的研究表明，认知卸载对于提高基于记忆的任务的表现非常有用，尤其是在高记忆负荷下。与此同时，老年人在各种记忆能力上都出现了下降，包括短期记忆的微妙变化，这表明认知卸载也可以使基于记忆的任务在这一群体中的表现受益。为此，94 名参与者（62 名年轻人，32 名老年人）在两种分组条件下接受了回溯式视听短期记忆任务的测试。在选择卸载条件下可以进行卸载，但在内部记忆条件下则不行。与内部记忆条件相比，在选择卸载条件下，两个年龄组的表现都有所提高。此外，在高记忆负荷下，两个年龄组使用卸载策略的选择相似，并且使用卸载策略对年轻人和老年人的表现都有类似的益处。这些数据表明，老年人可以有效地利用认知卸载来挽救基于记忆的活动的表现，并邀请未来在其他更复杂的任务中研究认知卸载对老年人的益处，在这些任务中，预计与年龄相关的记忆损伤会更加明显。
