Rotolo Lucas, Maquestiaux François, Ruthruff Eric, Lyphout-Spitz Morgan, Picard Laurence
Université de Fribourg, Rue P.A. de Faucigny 2, 1700, Fribourg, Suisse.
Université Marie et Louis Pasteur, INSERM, UMR 1322 LINC, F-25000, Besançon, France.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2025 Jul 25. doi: 10.3758/s13414-025-03133-3.
Younger adults can, in certain conditions, select two responses in parallel, thereby bypassing the central attentional bottleneck that constrains their dual-task performance. Older adults, meanwhile, have never been found to attain such parallel central processing (i.e., dual-task automaticity), even with highly practiced or extremely easy tasks. Here we asked whether older adults do not bypass the central bottleneck because they apply extra attention to one or both tasks as a strategy to compensate for cognitive deficits. In Experiment 1, we used the traditional psychological refractory period (PRP) procedure and replicated the typical finding: even though Task 2 was extremely easy, it suffered from large dual-task interference (353 ms) due to a central bottleneck. Because the PRP paradigm prioritizes Task 1, we hypothesized that this central bottleneck is strategic: older adults strategically over-prepare Task 1 at the expense of Task 2. So, in Experiment 2, we induced older adults to more evenly balance preparation between the two tasks. We did so by randomly intermixing single-task trials of each task amongst the dual-task PRP trials. This rebalancing of preparation allowed most older adults (20 out of 24) to consistently select the two responses in parallel, as evidenced by a close match between the observed distribution of inter-response intervals and that predicted by bottleneck bypassing, as well as by surprisingly little dual-task interference on Task 2 (85 ms). We conclude that older adults' processing mode is governed by the preparatory state, which can be modified to enable dual-task automaticity.
在某些情况下，较年轻的成年人能够并行选择两种反应，从而绕过限制其双任务表现的中央注意力瓶颈。与此同时，即使是面对高度熟练或极其简单的任务，也从未发现老年人能够实现这种并行的中央处理（即双任务自动化）。在这里，我们探讨老年人是否无法绕过中央瓶颈，是因为他们对一项或两项任务投入了额外的注意力，以此作为弥补认知缺陷的策略。在实验1中，我们采用了传统的心理不应期（PRP）程序，并重现了典型的发现：尽管任务2极其简单，但由于中央瓶颈，它仍遭受了较大的双任务干扰（353毫秒）。由于PRP范式优先处理任务1，我们推测这种中央瓶颈是策略性的：老年人策略性地过度准备任务1，而以牺牲任务2为代价。因此，在实验2中，我们诱导老年人在两项任务之间更均匀地平衡准备工作。我们通过在双任务PRP试验中随机混合每个任务的单任务试验来做到这一点。这种准备工作的重新平衡使大多数老年人（24人中的20人）能够持续并行选择两种反应，这一点可以从观察到的反应间隔分布与瓶颈绕过预测的分布紧密匹配得到证明，同时任务2上的双任务干扰也出奇地小（85毫秒）。我们得出结论，老年人的处理模式受准备状态的支配，而准备状态可以被修改以实现双任务自动化。
