ATTENTION AND AGING--UNDERSTANDING NEGATIVE PRIMING

认知老化的抑制缺陷假说（Hasher & Zacks， 1988）认为，年龄相关的抑制功能下降是 负责许多认知功能的变化，观察到， 衰老这里提出了八个实验来检查年龄差异， 抑制功能的背景下，负启动范式。的 负启动现象依赖于有效的抑制过程， 因此可以直接预测老年人应该 表现出减少的负启动，甚至根本没有。文学， 然而，这表明情况并非如此简单。一些研究 观察负启动的年龄差异，有些则没有。处理 在这种情况下，一些选择性的理论和模型 注意力、老化和负启动开始出现。这些 模型和理论对这一过程提供了完全不同的解释 在负启动任务上的潜在选择性注意表现。的 这里提出的实验试图区分模型， 对这些模型的预测进行了严格的测试。的目标 这项工作是为了缩小对这种模式的可能解释的范围 文献中报告的结果，并在这样做有助于我们的 理解选择性免疫的年龄差异的机制 关注此外，这项工作还可以提供有用的知识， 改善成年后期的行为缺陷。

The inhibitory deficit hypothesis of cognitive aging (Hasher & Zacks, 1988) holds that age-related declines in inhibitory function are responsible for many of the changes in cognitive functioning observed in aging. Eight experiments are proposed here to examine age differences in inhibitory function in the context of the negative priming paradigm. The phenomenon of negative priming depends on efficient inhibitory processes, and so allows the straightforward prediction that older adults should exhibit reduced negative priming, or even none at all. The literature, however, indicates that the picture is not quite so simple. Some studies observe age differences in negative priming and some have not. To deal with this state of affairs, a number of theories and models of selective attention, aging, and negative priming are beginning to appear. These models and theories offer quite different accounts of the processes underlying selective attention performance on a negative priming task. The experiments proposed here attempt to differentiate between the models with critical tests of predictions worked out for those models. The goal of this work is to narrow the field of possible explanations for the pattern of results reported in the literature, and in so doing contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying age differences in selective attention. In addition, this work can contribute knowledge useful for ameliorating behavioral deficits experienced in later adulthood.