Aging
It is almost a truism that cognitive flexibility declines as we grow older. However, empirical evidence paints a much more complex picture with some aspects virtually unchanged (e.g., Mayr & Kliegl, 2000) while other aspects do show marked deficits (Mayr, 2001). |
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A phenomenon that we are particularly interested in is the so-called fade-out cost that arises when people need to transition from a phase of "high-control" trial-to-trial task selection to a phase of "low-control" single-task performance. While young adults have no problems with this kind of transition, older adults continue to operate in a "high-control" mode of processing (Mayr & Liebscher, 2001). Together with Dan Spieler (Georgia Tech), we use behavioral and eye-recording techniques to examine the reasons for this overgeneralization of control. One intriguing result in this regard is that older adults spend much more time than young adults examining task cues after the transition to single-task performance (see Figure; Spieler, Mayr, & LaGrone, 2001), even though the cues provide no novel information. Possibly this reflects a general strategy in older adults to use external rather than internal sources of information. Such a strategy may be triggered by the gradual reduction of reliability of internal information across the life span. This work was funded by an NIA grant. |
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