Premium
Age and the divided attention costs of category exemplar generation
Author(s) -
Perfect T. J.,
Rabbitt P. M. A.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
british journal of developmental psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.062
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 2044-835X
pISSN - 0261-510X
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-835x.1993.tb00593.x
Subject(s) - psychology , task (project management) , cognitive psychology , reading (process) , working memory , resource (disambiguation) , cognition , process (computing) , cognitive resource theory , short term memory , developmental psychology , computer science , computer network , management , neuroscience , economics , operating system , political science , law
The ‘resource deficit model of aging’ (e.g. Craik & McDowd, 1987) proposes that differences in memory retrieval efficiency between younger and older adults are due to a global reduction in information processing resources with advancing age. So far, this model has only been tested for retrieval of recently acquired information or for data held in immediate memory. To see whether the resource deficit model of aging would apply to memory tasks requiring retrieval of overlearned information from long‐term memory, middle‐aged (50–59) and elderly (70–79) adults were compared on a dual‐task paradigm in which the primary task was category exemplar generation and the secondary task was two‐choice auditory reaction time. The respective resource demands of two conditions of exemplar generation, hard and easy, derived from Battig & Montague's (1969) potency norms, were compared with a neutral condition of reading English words aloud. Results indicated that retrieval of overlearned information from long‐term memory is indeed a resource‐demanding (effortful) rather than a resource‐free (automatic) process, and that the amount of resources (effort) it requires depends upon the familiarity of the word being searched for. However, the divided attention costs of the two retrieval tasks did not interact with age, fluid intelligence or crystallized intelligence. The implications for the resource deficit model of memory aging are discussed.