AGING OF COGNITIVE MECHANISMS

拟议的实验建立在一项旨在了解成年期有效认知功能的潜力和局限性的研究计划之上。 本研究的具体目标是：1）从调节技能获得率的因素方面描述认知老化; 2）描述所选技能学习形式（项目学习、规则学习、特征学习、情境学习和序列学习）相对效率的年龄差异。 年轻人和老年人在对比学习形式的条件下的表现（例如，简单项目学习与规则学习）预计将提供测试的一般理论以及发展理论的技能获得。 在该项目的五年期间，将对大约1 000名年龄在20岁至70岁之间的妇女和男子进行八次实验。 实验1-4检查与年龄相关的差异，在项目学习，计算加速，从计算到项目学习的条件下，有利于项目学习或计算的实践的影响。实验5-7的目的是将不同的学习形式进行对比，以衡量每种学习形式对整体技能的贡献。 来自实验5-7的数据将允许识别学习中的特定年龄缺陷，并将利用这些缺陷来测试学习和自动化的一般理论。实验8研究了不同年龄段的会话中断和保持效果。 建议的研究结果有助于了解整个成人寿命的技能获得和保留的有效条件。

The proposed experiments build on a program of research aimed at understanding the potentials and limits of effective cognitive functioning during the adult years. Specific aims of the proposed research are 1) to describe cognitive aging in terms of the factors that regulate the rate of skill acquisition, and 2) to describe age differences in the relative efficiency of selected forms of skill learning (item learning, rule learning, feature learning, context learning, and sequence learning). Performance of younger and older adults under conditions that contrast forms of learning (e.g., simple item learning with rule learning) is expected to provide tests of general theories as well as developmental theories of skill acquisition. During the five years of this project, about 1000 women and men between the ages of 20 and 70 years will be tested in eight experiments. Experiments 1-4 examine age-related differences in the effects of practice on item learning, computational speedup, and the shift from computation to item learning under conditions that favor either item learning or computation. Experiments 5-7 are designed to contrast different forms of learning with one other so as to weigh the contribution of each to overall skill. The data from Experiments 5-7 will allow specific age deficits in learning to be identified, and will exploit those deficits to test general theories of learning and automatization. Experiment 8 investigates inter-session disruption and retention effects by age. The outcomes of the proposed research contribute to the understanding of the effective conditions of skill acquisition and retention throughout the adult life span.