ATTENTION, MEMORY, AND DISTRACTIBILITY

这项研究的目的之一是考察老龄化对老年人的影响 开发和执行自动和费力的注意过程。 我们之前发现，老年人不能自动获得 经过广泛的实践检验。我们正在研究在多大程度上 老年人可以超越第一阶段的学习，即“联想” 学习，到导致自动检测的优先级学习，a 注意系统对待处理物品的直接和即时反应 检测到。这项工作的第二个目的是调查两者之间的关系 在年龄和注意力不集中之间。开发了一种实验程序 受试者被要求重复呈现给一只耳朵的信息 (跟踪)同时忽略另一只耳朵中的同步消息。低 可分心的表现表现为与 并且在另一只耳朵中没有同时(和不同的)消息。确实是 此前有报道称，年龄和注意力分散是直接相关的。这个 随着年龄的增长，注意力分散的增加在以下方面尤为突出 在过去两年内住院并正在接受治疗的老年人 处方药。一项更精确的调查正在进行中 完成了养生的调理作用。即将完成的还有一项 表观年龄相关性增长的具体来源调查 注意力不集中，注意力控制能力下降。第三个目标 这项工作的关键是确定思维生产的参数 作为相关的精神活动，如洞察力、注意力和持续性 作为现象的注意力，它们的相互关系，以及对 成年期衰老的影响。第四个目标是检查两者之间的关系 在记忆或遗忘和衰老之间。六年来的纵向变化 已经证实了即时和短期延迟记忆。也是 展示的是24小时内健忘率与年龄的关系 句号。

One purpose of this research is to examine the influence of aging upon the development and enactment of automatic and effortful attentional processes. We found previously that old adults are unable to attain automatic detection after extensive practice. We are examining the extent to which old adults can go beyond the first level of learning, i.e., "associative" learning, to priority learning which results in automatic detection, a direct and immediate response of the attentional system to the item to be detected. A second purpose of this work is to investigate the relation between age and distractibility. An experimental procedure was developed where subjects are asked to repeat messages presented to one ear (shadowing) while ignoring simultaneous messages in the other ear. Low distractibility is demonstrated by equivalent shadowing performance with and without simultaneous (and different) messages in the other ear. It was previously reported that age and distractibility are directly related. The increase in distractibility with increased age was especially prominent in old adults who had been hospitalized within the prior two years and were on prescription medication. A more precise investigation is now being completed into the moderating effect of health. Also being completed is an investigation in the specific source of the apparent age-related increase in distractibility and reduced ability to control attention. A third goal of this work is to determine the parameters of thought production as well as related mental activity such as insight, attention and sustained attention as phenomena, their interrelations, and the susceptibility to the influence of aging in adulthood. A fourth goal is to examine the relation between memory or forgetting and aging. Six-year longitudinal changes in immediate and short-term delayed memory have been demonstrated. Also demonstrated is the age dependence of forgetting rate during a 24 hour period.