Denney N W, Pearce K A, Palmer A M
Exp Aging Res. 1982 Summer;8(2):115-8. doi: 10.1080/03610738208258407.
Ninety-six individuals between the ages of 20 and 80 were presented with two types of problem-solving tasks. One was a traditional laboratory problem-solving task; the other was composed of a number of practical problems. Three types of practical problems were employed--problems that young adults might encounter in their daily lives, problems that middle-aged adults might encounter, and problems that elderly adults might encounter. On the traditional laboratory task, performance decreased with increasing age. On the practical problems, however, performance increased from the 20- to the 30-year-old group and decreased thereafter with the most drastic decreases occurring in the 60- and 70-year-old groups. When the three types of practical problems were analyzed separately, the performance of the younger adults was better than the performance of older adults on all of the problem-solving tasks, even on the practical problems that were designed specifically to be ones that older adults would be more likely to encounter in their daily lives.
96名年龄在20岁至80岁之间的人被给予了两种类型的解决问题任务。一种是传统的实验室解决问题任务；另一种由一些实际问题组成。采用了三种类型的实际问题——年轻人在日常生活中可能遇到的问题、中年人可能遇到的问题以及老年人可能遇到的问题。在传统的实验室任务中，表现随着年龄的增长而下降。然而，在实际问题中，表现从20岁至30岁组有所提高，此后下降，最显著的下降发生在60岁和70岁组。当分别分析这三种类型的实际问题时，即使在专门设计为老年人在日常生活中更可能遇到的实际问题上，年轻人在所有解决问题任务中的表现也优于老年人。
