Gorman M F, Fisher D L
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Massachusetts at Amherst 01003, USA.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 1998 May;53(3):P189-200. doi: 10.1093/geronb/53b.3.p189.
Some investigators have argued that aging affects the slowing of processes in nonlexical tasks more than it does the slowing of processes in lexical tasks, but that within task domains, the slowing is identical. Other investigators have argued that even within nonlexical tasks there is differential slowing such that aging affects processing speed more in (nonlexical) coordinative tasks than it does in (nonlexical) sequential tasks. Perhaps, more finely still, there is a differential slowing in coordinative nonlexical tasks. Toward this end, latent models of general and process-specific slowing in coordinative nonlexical tasks were formulated for older adults. A visual search task was then used to test the two types of models. It was found that a latent model of process-specific slowing explained significantly more of the variability than a latent model of general slowing, indicating that there is a differential slowing of processes among coordinative tasks within the nonlexical domain. It was also discovered that the coordinative process most greatly affected was that of deciding to terminate the search when no target was present in the display, indicating together with other studies a possible difference in the slowing of strategic processes among both coordinative and sequential tasks within the nonlexical domain, but no difference in the slowing of nonstrategic processes.
一些研究者认为，衰老对非词汇任务中进程减缓的影响比对词汇任务中进程减缓的影响更大，但在任务领域内，减缓情况是相同的。另一些研究者则认为，即使在非词汇任务中也存在差异减缓，即衰老对（非词汇）协调性任务处理速度的影响比对（非词汇）序列性任务的影响更大。或许更确切地说，协调性非词汇任务中存在差异减缓。为此，针对老年人构建了协调性非词汇任务中一般和特定进程减缓的潜在模型。然后使用视觉搜索任务对这两种类型的模型进行测试。结果发现，特定进程减缓的潜在模型比一般减缓的潜在模型能显著解释更多的变异性，这表明在非词汇领域的协调性任务中，进程存在差异减缓。还发现受影响最大的协调性进程是在显示中没有目标时决定终止搜索的进程，这与其他研究共同表明，在非词汇领域的协调性和序列性任务中，策略性进程的减缓可能存在差异，但非策略性进程的减缓没有差异。
