Improving older adults’ ability to follow instructions: benefits of actions at encoding and retrieval in working memory

ABSTRACT

The ability to follow instructions is critical for learning new skills and may support successful aging. Recent evidence indicates a close link between following instructions and working memory, and that action-based processing at encoding and retrieval can improve this ability. In this study, we examined the ability to follow instructions and the benefits of action-based processing in young and older adults. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with spoken or silent demonstrated instructions, then recalled them by oral repetition or physical enactment. Older adults produced fewer correct responses in all conditions. Both age groups were better at recalling demonstrated than spoken instructions in the verbal but not the enacted recall condition. Older adults also benefited from enacted recall relative to verbal recall, but to a smaller extent than younger adults. In Experiment 2, the additional benefit of dual modalities (spoken instructions with simultaneous demonstration) relative to single modality presentation (spoken instructions, or silent demonstration) was examined. Both age groups showed superior performance in dual modality conditions relative to spoken instructions when using verbal recall. These findings suggest that although following instruction ability appears to decline with age, older adults can still benefit from action at encoding and retrieval.

KEYWORDS:

• Working memory
• aging
• enactment
• following instructions

Acknowledgement

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31400873, to T.Y.), and the CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology (KLMH2015ZG02, to T.Y. and Z.Y.). Zheng Ye was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31961133025). We thank Qi Zheng and Shi-yu Zhang for help with data collection.

Disclosure statement

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

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Notes

1 Twenty-four young adults and 27 older adults initially took part, with one older adult with a MoCA total score <26 excluded. The two age groups were significantly different in education and IQ, and thus we created two matched sample for all reported analyses (21 young adults and 21 older adults). The results of the original sample (24 young adults, 26 older adults) on the following instruction task were the same as the final sample (21 young adults and 21 older adults).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31400873, to T.Y.), and the CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology (KLMH2015ZG02, to T.Y. and Z.Y.). Zheng Ye was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31961133025).