Time of Day & Aging in Implicit/Explicit Learning

描述(申请人提供)：在外显记忆和抑制功能的任务上，老年人一直被证明在上午表现更好，而年轻人在下午表现更好。在所提出的一组实验中，我们检验了年龄和一天中的时间影响顺序规律性内隐学习的假设，其中老年人在早上高峰期的学习效果更好。第一个实验测试了年轻人和老年人在一天中上午和下午交替进行的一系列反应时间任务(ASRT)。第二个实验使用ASRT的一种新的变体来检验外显序列学习也随着一天中的时间而变化的假设。对于这两种类型的学习，时间效应将与额叶功能和工作记忆容量作为一种潜在机制联系在一起。这个项目与健康相关，因为老年人经常必须学习和重新学习涉及内隐和外显学习的技能(例如，使用计算机，中风后恢复)，因此确定如何通过选择适当的学习来最大化学习是很重要的 条件，如一天中的时间。这个项目对衰老研究也有影响，因为在一天中的不同时间进行测试，可以夸大或最小化跨任务的年龄损害。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): On tasks of explicit memory and inhibitory function, older adults have consistently been shown to perform better in the morning, while young are better in the afternoon. In the proposed set of experiments, we test the hypothesis that aging and time of day affect implicit learning of sequential regularity with elderly learning better at peak morning times. The first experiment tests both young and old on an alternating serial reaction time task (ASRT) at morning and afternoon times of day. The second experiment uses a novel variation of the ASRT to test the hypothesis that explicit sequence learning also varies with time of day. For both types of learning, time-of-day effects will be linked to frontal lobe functioning and working memory capacity as an underlying mechanism. This project has health relevance in that older people often have to learn and relearn skills that involve both implicit and explicit learning (e.g., using computers, recovering after stroke), and so it is important to determine how learning can be maximized by choosing appropriate learning conditions, such as time of day. This project also has implications for aging research in that age impairments seen across tasks may be exaggerated or minimized by testing at different times of day.