Age does not modify the processing architecture of dual memory retrieval: an investigation of age-related effects on dual-retrieval practice in younger and older adults

ABSTRACT

The present study investigated the cognitive processing architecture of dual(-memory) retrieval from a single cue across two distinct age groups: younger and older adults. Previous research has shown that younger adults can exhibit learned parallel retrieval, but only if they synchronize response execution. This phenomenon has not been demonstrated with older adults. Experiment 1 functioned as an extension of previous studies to assess whether the finding of learned retrieval parallelism in younger adults could be observed in older adults as well. The experiment used a dual retrieval task that involved the retrieval of two responses, one vocal and one keypress, from a single cue. Experiment 2 further assessed whether the cognitive processing architecture underlying the occurrence of learned retrieval parallelism in dual memory retrieval could be influenced by the number of cues in single-retrieval practice. The results of both experiments showed that learned retrieval parallelism occurs in older as well as younger adults and that the processing mechanisms involved in dual memory retrieval are relatively stable across age groups.

KEYWORDS:

• Dual-tasking
• dual retrieval
• cognitive aging
• practice
• bottleneck models

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Timo Kärger and Anja Skoglund for their assistance with data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In our interpretation of the Bayes factors, we follow the guidelines provided by Wagenmakers et al. (2011) which use the following cutoff values to translate BF₁₀: BF₁₀ > 100 extreme evidence for H1, BF₁₀ 30–100 very strong evidence for H1, BF₁₀ 10–30 strong evidence for H1, BF₁₀ 3–10 substantial evidence for H1; BF₁₀ 1–3 anecdotal / inconclusive evidence for H1, and BF₁₀ 1 equals no evidence. Values of BF₁₀ < 1 provide support for the null hypothesis. BF₁₀ values between 0.33–1 resemble anecdotal evidence; 0.33–0.10 substantial evidence; 0.10–0.03 strong evidence 0.03–0.01 very strong evidence and values <0.01 mark extreme evidence for H0.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [STR 1223/1].