Wright R E
J Gerontol. 1981 Sep;36(5):605-14. doi: 10.1093/geronj/36.5.605.
The performance of young and old adults was compared in two different situations to investigate the reasons why the latter are especially poor at divided attention tasks. Although the two experimental tasks were quite different, one a single task and the other time-sharing, task difficulty was manipulated in a similar fashion in both situations. Specifically, in both tasks difficulty was varied by manipulation of number of items to be rehearsed and number of mental operations necessary for successful performance. The most salient difference in task demands, that is, divided versus nondivided attention, had little effect on results. Performance of both age groups declined as task difficulty increased, with the decline being greater and more rapid for the older subjects. Results are discussed in terms of competition for limited processing capacity in working memory.
研究人员在两种不同情境下比较了年轻人和老年人的表现，以探究为何后者在注意力分散任务中表现尤其不佳。尽管两项实验任务截然不同，一项是单一任务，另一项是分时任务，但在两种情境下，任务难度的操控方式相似。具体而言，在两项任务中，难度都是通过操控需复述的项目数量以及成功完成任务所需的心理操作数量来改变的。任务要求方面最显著的差异，即注意力分散与非分散，对结果影响甚微。随着任务难度增加，两个年龄组的表现均有所下降，且老年受试者的下降幅度更大、速度更快。研究结果从工作记忆中有限处理能力的竞争角度进行了讨论。
