Effect of experience on representation and control across the lifespan

在一生中，我们的经历有助于塑造我们的认知能力。在儿童时期，环境的丰富程度影响发展；在成年时期，在特定技能方面的丰富经验促进了“专业知识”；而在老年，持续参与刺激活动有助于“认知储备”。在所有这些情况下，认知表现都会通过这些经历得到增强或改善。然而，关于这些经历是如何产生影响的，以及其影响在整个认知系统中有多广泛，我们知之甚少。目前的建议是通过研究两个已被证明影响认知系统的常见经验来研究这些问题。这些经历是双语，即个人一生中经常使用两种语言，以及音乐培训，即个人从事音乐表演的密集学习和练习。不同于以前在单个时间点的离散研究中检验这些经历的影响的研究，目前的建议是将这项研究整合到一个连贯的框架中，以便比较和对比它们在人生的三个关键时刻--童年、成年和老年--的影响。有三个主要目标。首先，根据受影响的功能范围和这些影响最明显的年龄，对双语和音乐训练如何影响认知能力进行详细的调查。第二种是用认知功能模型来解释这些模式，该模型基于专门知识系统的表征过程和注意力控制过程之间的区别。第三是使用这些分析来提出一种机制(或一套机制)，经验通过这种机制产生这些影响。这一结果对认知系统和发展的理论概念以及教育、补救和康复的实践方法具有重要意义。

Throughout life, our experiences help shape our cognitive abilities. In childhood, the degree of environmental richness influences development; in adulthood, intense experience with specific skills promotes "expertise"; and in older age, ongoing participation in stimulating activities contributes to "cognitive reserve". In all these cases, cognitive performance is enhanced or modified through these experiences. However, little is known about how these experiences have their effect and how broad the impact is across the cognitive system. The present proposal is to examine these questions by studying two common experiences that have been shown to influence cognitive systems. These experiences are bilingualism, in which individuals routinely use two languages throughout their lives, and musical training, in which individuals engage in intensive study and practice of musical performance. Unlike previous research that has examined the effect of these experiences in discrete studies at a single point in time, the present proposal is to integrate this research into a coherent framework in order to compare and contrast their effects at three crucial points in the lifespan - childhood, young adulthood, and older age. There are three main objectives. The first is to conduct detailed investigations of how each of bilingualism and musical training affect cognitive ability in terms of the range of functions affected and the ages at which these effects are most apparent. The second is to interpret these patterns in a model of cognitive functioning that is based on a distinction between processes involved in representation of specialized knowledge systems and processes involved in control of attention. The third is to use these analyses to propose a mechanism (or set of mechanisms) through which experience has these effects. The results have implications for theoretical notions of cognitive systems and development and practical approaches of education, remediation, and rehabilitation.