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Miscellany

Ageing and switching of the focus of attention in working memory: results from a modified N-Back task

Pages 134-154 | Published online: 17 Feb 2007
 

Abstract

We conducted two experiments using a modified version of the N-Back task. For younger adults, there was an abrupt increase in reaction time of about 250 ms in passing from N = 1 to N > 1, indicating a cost associated with switching of the focus of attention within working memory. Response time costs remained constant over the range N = 2 to N = 5. Accuracy declined steadily over the full range of N (Experiment 1). Focus switch costs did not interact with either working memory updating (Experiment 1), or global task switching (Experiment 2). There were no age differences in RT costs once general slowing was taken into account, but there was a larger focus-switch-related accuracy cost in older adults than in younger adults. No age sensitivity was found for either updating or global task switching. The results suggest (a) that focus switching is a cognitive primitive, distinct from task switching and updating, and (b) that focus switching shows a specific age-related deficit in the accuracy domain.

Department of Psychology, 430 Huntington Hall, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244–2340, USA. Email: [email protected]

Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (AG-16201). We thank John Cerella for his many useful comments. Marc Howard and Kara Bopp provided valuable additional comments.

Notes

Department of Psychology, 430 Huntington Hall, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244–2340, USA. Email: [email protected]

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