TASK STRATEGIES, AGING AND SKILL ACQUISITION

描述（改编自研究者摘要）：老年人获得新的 比年轻人更慢，更不成功。 为什么？为什么？ 一 一种可能性是， 成人对任务的方法（即，他们的策略）可能与 年轻的成年人。 初步研究表明，老年人确实会收养 不同的任务策略，这种策略差异确实介导了年龄相关的 技能获得的差异，以及老年人的策略使用， 受任务结构的影响。 拟议的研究旨在 回答以下问题：（1）老年人何时使用不同的 技能获取任务中的策略？ (2)是什么机制 使用差异化策略的基础？ (3)老年人的策略选择 它是顺应变化的，还是受到认知和速度的严格限制 能力？ (4)培训和任务结构是否可以设计成使老年人 成年人使用最佳策略？ (5)战略差异如何 纳入了与年龄相关的技能差异的一般理论 收购？ 本文提出了12个实验来研究策略问题 为年轻人和老年人提供一系列技能， 学习、基于记忆的联想学习以及更复杂的技能，例如 学习使用自动取款机和学习逻辑 决策 拟议的努力包括三个实验系列， 系统地追求识别和理解与年龄有关的目标， 策略选择、策略使用和策略调整的差异。 首先，将确定评估先前做法的成本和收益 非特异性迁移对技能获得的影响。 第二，实践 时间表操作将决定任务训练应该如何组织 促进有效学习策略的使用。 三是 将评估战略选择的灵活性，目标是 识别导致最佳策略选择的任务组件。 的 所提出的研究结果将为模型提供基本的经验数据 年龄相关的差异，在技能的获得，以及实际的 关于如何以及何时可以最大限度地减少这种年龄差异的信息 通过任务设计或适当的培训。

DESCRIPTION (adapted from investigator's abstract): Older adults acquire new skills more slowly and less successfully than young adults. Why? One possibility that has received minimal empirical attention is that older adults' approach to the task (i.e., their strategy) may be different from young adults'. Preliminary research suggests that older adults do adopt different task strategies, such strategy differences do mediate age-related differences in skill acquisition, and the strategy use of older adults can be influenced by the structure of the task. The proposed research is designed to answer the following questions: (1) When do older adults use different strategies in skill acquisition tasks? (2) What are the mechanisms that underlie differential strategy use? (3) Is strategy selection of older adults amenable to change, or is it strictly limited by cognitive and speed abilities? (4) Can training and task structure be designed to enable older adults to use the optimal strategy? (5) How can strategy differences be incorporated into a general theory of age-related differences in skill acquisition? Twelve experiments are proposed to investigate strategy issues for young and older adults for a range of skills including perceptual learning, memory-based associative learning, and more complex skills such as learning to use an automatic teller machine and learning to make logic decisions. The proposed effort consists of three experimental series to systematically pursue the goals of identifying and understanding age-related differences in strategy selection, strategy use, and strategy adjustment. First, the costs and benefits of prior practice will be determined to assess the influence of nonspecific transfer on skill acquisition. Second, practice schedule manipulations will determine how task training should be structured to facilitate use of efficient strategies for learning. Third, the flexibility of strategy selection will be assessed with the goal of identifying the task components that lead to optimal strategy choice. The results of the proposed research will yield basic empirical data for a model of age-related differences in skill acquisition as well as practical information about how and when such age-related differences can be minimized through task design or appropriate training.