Age Differences in the Transfer and Maintenance of Practice-Induced Improvements in Task Switching: The Impact of Working-Memory and Inhibition Demands.
Age Differences in the Transfer and Maintenance of Practice-Induced Improvements in Task Switching: The Impact of Working-Memory and Inhibition Demands.
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DOI：
10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00410
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发表时间：
2017
影响因子：
3.8
通讯作者：
Fehér B
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kray J;Fehér B
最近关于任务转换训练的老龄化研究发现，与年轻人相比，老年人在未受过训练的转换任务中表现出更大的进步。然而，不太清楚的是，什么类型的认知控制过程可以解释这些训练收益，因为参与者接受了特定类型的切换任务，包括二价刺激，需要高抑制要求，没有任务线索帮助他们跟踪任务序列，因此需要高工作记忆(WM)要求。本研究的目的是首先明确抑制、工作记忆或转换要求是否对迁移的发生起关键作用，以及这种迁移是否取决于训练和迁移情况之间的重叠程度；其次评估在任务转换中练习诱发的收益是否可以在更长的时间内保持。为此，我们创造了五种训练条件，这些条件在转换(转换与单任务训练)、抑制(在双价或单价刺激下的转换训练)和工作记忆要求(有或没有任务线索的转换训练)中各不相同。我们对81名年轻人和82名老年人进行了前测-训练-后测设计，并在6个月后进行了跟踪测量。结果表明，所有训练组和年龄组都表现出任务转换的改善，并且训练条件对年轻人和老年人未受过训练的转换任务的改善有不同的影响。对于较年轻的成年人，我们发现，在不考虑抑制和工作记忆要求的情况下，转换组的任务切换比单任务训练组有更大的改善，这表明转换练习是最关键的。然而，这些好处在6个月后就消失了。相比之下，对于老年人来说，在高抑制要求下练习任务转换的训练组比其他组表现出更大的改善。此外，随着时间的推移，这些好处一直保持着。我们还发现，任务转换中的利益转移更大，培训和转移情况之间的重叠性更大。然而，结果显示没有证据表明转移到其他未经训练的认知任务。总体而言，研究结果表明，在两项任务之间切换时解决干扰的训练对老年人转移的发生最为关键。
Recent aging studies on training in task switching found that older adults showed larger improvements to an untrained switching task as younger adults do. However, less clear is what type of cognitive control processes can explain these training gains as participants were trained with a particular type of switching task including bivalent stimuli, requiring high inhibition demands, and no task cues helping them keeping track of the task sequence, and by this, requiring high working-memory (WM) demands. The aims of this study were first to specify whether inhibition, WM, or switching demands are critical for the occurrence of transfer and whether this transfer depends on the degree of overlap between training and transfer situation; and second to assess whether practiced-induced gains in task switching can be maintained over a longer period of time. To this end, we created five training conditions that varied in switching (switching vs. single task training), inhibition (switching training with bivalent or univalent stimuli), and WM demands (switching training with or without task cues). We investigated 81 younger adults and 82 older adults with a pretest-training-posttest design and a follow-up measurement after 6 months. Results indicated that all training and age groups showed improvements in task switching and a differential effect of training condition on improvements to an untrained switching task in younger and older adults. For younger adults, we found larger improvements in task switching for the switching groups than the single-task training group independently of inhibition and WM demands, suggesting that practice in switching is most critical. However, these benefits disappeared after 6 months. In contrast, for older adults training groups practicing task switching under high inhibition demands showed larger improvements to untrained switching tasks than the other groups. Moreover, these benefits were maintained over time. We also found that the transfer of benefits in task switching was larger with greater overlap between training and transfer situation. However, results revealed no evidence for transfer to other untrained cognitive task. Overall, the findings suggest that training in resolving interference while switching between two tasks is most critical for the occurrence of transfer in the elderly.