Paul Verhaeghen1, Yanmin Zhang. 1. Department of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 654 Cherry Street, Atlanta, GA 30332-0170, USA. verhaeghen@gatech.edu
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: In 2 experiments, we examined the oft-replicated finding of age-related differences in accuracy at retrieving items stored in working memory, but outside the focus of attention. Specifically, we investigated whether such differences could be explained by (a) age-related differences in coping with the dual-task nature of swapping items into and out of the focus of attention and/or (b) age-related differences in resistance to interference. METHOD: We used a modified version of the N-Back task with stimuli of different levels of difficulty, and experimental manipulations aimed at isolating the dual-task and interference effects. RESULTS: We found both explanations lacking: We obtained a dual-task cost (Experiment 1) and an interference cost (Experiment 2), as well as a large age effect (Cohen's d = 1.6 in Experiment 1 and 0.7 in Experiment 2) but neither the dual task nor the interference effect was sensitive to age. DISCUSSION: These findings, combined with previous failures to find an explanation for the age effects, suggest that item availability after a focus switch might be an important new and fundamental variable-a cognitive primitive-potentially necessary for a full understanding of age effects in higher order cognition.
OBJECTIVES: In 2 experiments, we examined the oft-replicated finding of age-related differences in accuracy at retrieving items stored in working memory, but outside the focus of attention. Specifically, we investigated whether such differences could be explained by (a) age-related differences in coping with the dual-task nature of swapping items into and out of the focus of attention and/or (b) age-related differences in resistance to interference. METHOD: We used a modified version of the N-Back task with stimuli of different levels of difficulty, and experimental manipulations aimed at isolating the dual-task and interference effects. RESULTS: We found both explanations lacking: We obtained a dual-task cost (Experiment 1) and an interference cost (Experiment 2), as well as a large age effect (Cohen's d = 1.6 in Experiment 1 and 0.7 in Experiment 2) but neither the dual task nor the interference effect was sensitive to age. DISCUSSION: These findings, combined with previous failures to find an explanation for the age effects, suggest that item availability after a focus switch might be an important new and fundamental variable-a cognitive primitive-potentially necessary for a full understanding of age effects in higher order cognition.
Entities:
Keywords:
Cognition; Executive function; Working memory
Authors: Leslie Vaughan; Chandramallika Basak; Marilyn Hartman; Paul Verhaeghen Journal: Neuropsychol Dev Cogn B Aging Neuropsychol Cogn Date: 2008-05-16