Brooks B M, Gardiner J M
City University, London, England.
Mem Cognit. 1994 Jan;22(1):27-33. doi: 10.3758/bf03202758.
In two experiments, younger and older adults studied three lists of verbal phrases, each of the latter describing a simple action. One list was studied and recalled verbally; one was recalled verbally, but the actions were performed at study [retrospective SPTs (subject-performed tasks)]; and one was studied verbally and the actions were performed at test (prospective SPTs). With long lists, but not with short ones, retrospective-SPT recall exceeded verbal recall and older adults recalled fewer SPTs than did younger adults. Prospective-SPT recall did not exceed verbal recall at either list length, and in each of these prospective-SPT tests, older adults recalled fewer action phrases than did younger adults. Thus, it appears that when retrospective and prospective tasks are equated there are marked age differences that are generally consistent with the view that memory impairment in the elderly is more likely to occur in tasks that make higher attentional processing demands.
在两项实验中，年轻和年长的成年人学习了三组语言短语列表，每组列表都描述了一个简单的动作。其中一组列表通过语言学习并回忆；一组通过语言回忆，但动作在学习时执行[回顾性自我执行任务（SPTs）]；还有一组通过语言学习，动作在测试时执行（前瞻性SPTs）。对于长列表而非短列表，回顾性SPT回忆超过了语言回忆，且年长成年人回忆的SPT比年轻成年人少。在任何一种列表长度下，前瞻性SPT回忆都未超过语言回忆，并且在这些前瞻性SPT测试中的每一项中，年长成年人回忆的动作短语都比年轻成年人少。因此，似乎当回顾性和前瞻性任务相当时，存在明显的年龄差异，这总体上与以下观点一致：老年人的记忆障碍更有可能发生在对注意力加工要求更高的任务中。
