Working memory across the adult lifespan: An adversarial collaboration

人类跟踪正在进行的想法、计划、行动、当前任务和周围变化的能力对日常生活至关重要。这种能力被称为工作记忆，是大脑的一个系统，它使我们专注于我们正在做的事情，避免分心，从一个任务切换到另一个任务，解决问题，在购物中心或城市中导航，在繁忙的高速公路上开车，准备一顿饭，或者同时做几件事，比如走路和说话。然而，科学家们对是什么限制了我们的工作记忆能力，以及随着人们从中年进入老年，这些限制是如何变化的，进行了激烈的辩论。有时这样的辩论可以带来重要的新见解，但研究人员通常与志同道合的人合作，而不是与持相反观点的人合作。这可能导致无休止的辩论循环，阻碍真正的理解进步，并可能导致对有限的研究资源、努力和时间的无效利用。研究人员是三种不同科学理论和方法的国际领导者，以理解人类重要的工作记忆认知能力。这一提议涉及罕见的持有不同观点的共同研究者，他们同意在一个项目上合作，直接调查为什么他们的独立研究项目之前产生了不同的结果，这些结果对理解年龄对认知的影响有着不同的含义。尽管我们持有不同的科学观点，但我们已经成功地合作编辑了一期期刊，组织了科学会议，并同意共同努力，帮助推进对我们所有人随着年龄增长认知能力变化的理解，从而为合作提供了坚实的基础。从之前的研究结果来看：理论1假设(a)如果工作记忆满了，例如单词，那么就不可能做出决定或记住视觉模式(b)有一种一般的工作记忆能力在成年后下降。理论2假设(a)工作记忆的表现取决于注意力集中在记忆或决策上的时间长短(b)对单词的心理排练不需要注意力(c)在成年阶段，心理排练和注意力可能以不同的速度下降。理论3假设(a)即使是健康的老年人也可以在快速准确地做出决定的同时处理工作记忆中的文字和视觉模式(b)人们可以拥有良好的记忆而不是快速的决策者，反之亦然(c)有几种不同的工作记忆能力，这些能力在成年期以不同的速度下降，有些能力在老年时相对完整。研究涉及17个实验，以检验年龄在18-75岁之间的健康成年志愿者在工作记忆中表现如何他们被要求在工作记忆能力的极限下记住单词或视觉模式，并被要求做出简单的快速决定（比如一串字母是不是一个单词，或者利用他们对世界的一般知识）。这些实验将观察人们如何处理专注于记忆任务或决策任务，或者被要求同时做这两件事。其中两个实验将涉及大量的人进行一系列测试，例如，擅长记忆测试的人是否也能快速准确地做出决定，或者擅长记忆和同时做出决定。每种理论都对我们计划的实验结果做出了不同的预测。这项计划中的研究对于新的理论发展，以及在整个成年期对这一关键人类能力的理解方面取得重大进展具有重大潜力。至关重要的是，它将揭示是所有的工作记忆都随着年龄的增长而下降，还是某些方面基本保持不变，这对为老年用户设计技术以及终身教育和培训具有重要意义。

The human ability to keep track of ongoing thoughts, plans, actions, current tasks, and changes around us is essential for everyday living. This ability is known as working memory, a system of the brain that allows us to focus on what we are doing, avoid distractions, switch from one task to another, solve problems, navigate around a shopping centre or city, drive on a busy motorway, prepare a meal, or do several things at once such as walking and talking. However, there are vigorous debates among scientists about what limits our working memory ability, and how those limits change as people move through middle age and into their older years. Sometimes such debates can lead to major new insights, but often researchers work with like minded people rather than with people who have opposing views. This can lead to an endless cycle of debate that hampers the genuine advance of understanding, and can result in ineffective use of limited research resources, effort and time. The investigators are international leaders of three different scientific theories and approaches to understanding the important human cognitive ability of working memory. The proposal involves the rare occurrence of co-investigators who hold different views, agreeing to work together on a project that will directly investigate why their independent research programmes have previously generated different results with different implications for understanding the effects of age on cognition. Although holding differing scientific views we have successfully cooperated in editing a journal issue and organising scientific meetings, as well as agreeing to work together to help advance understanding of what changes in the cognitive ability of us all as we age, thereby allowing a solid basis for the collaboration. From previous research results:Theory 1 assumes (a) if working memory is full to capacity with e.g. words, then it will be impossible to make decisions or to remember visual patterns as well (b) there is one general working memory ability that declines across adult age. Theory 2 assumes (a) working memory performance depends on how long attention is focused on memory or on decision making (b) mental rehearsal of words does not require attention (c) mental rehearsal and attention might each decline at different rates across adult age.Theory 3 assumes (a) even healthy older people can cope with holding words and visual patterns in working memory while making quick and accurate decisions (b) people can have good memories without being quick decision makers and vice versa (c) there are several different working memory abilities and these decline at different rates across adulthood with some abilities relatively intact in old ageThe research involves 17 experiments to examine how healthy adult volunteers aged 18-75 perform when they are asked to remember words or visual patterns at the limits of their working memory capacity, and are asked to make simple rapid decisions (such as whether a string of letters is a word or not, or taps into their general knowledge of the world). The experiments will look at how people cope with focusing on the memory task or on the decision task, or are asked to do both at the same time. Two of the experiments will involve large numbers of people performing a range of tests to see if, e.g. people who are good at memory tests are also quick and accurate on decisions, or good at memory and making decisions at the same time. Each theory makes different predictions for the results of our planned experiments. The planned research has significant potential for new theoretical developments, and for major advances in the understanding of this key human ability across the adult lifespan. Crucially, it will reveal whether all of working memory declines with age or whether some aspects remain largely intact, with important implications for design of technology for older users, and for lifelong education and training.