Age Effects in Sequence-Construction for a Continuous Cognitive Task: Similar Sequence-Trends but Fewer Switch-Points
| Autor: | Gregory R. Samanez-Larkin, Ted O'Donoghue, Joshua L. Rutt, Valerie F. Reyna, Corinna E. Löckenhoff, Casey Gallagher |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2018 |
| Předmět: |
Adult
Male Aging Social Psychology media_common.quotation_subject Decision Making The Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences Choice Behavior 050105 experimental psychology Task (project management) 03 medical and health sciences Cognition 0302 clinical medicine Reaction Time Humans sort Attention 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences Set (psychology) Aged media_common Working memory 05 social sciences Age Factors Self-control Time perception Clinical Psychology Female Geriatrics and Gerontology Time preference Psychology Gerontology Psychomotor Performance 030217 neurology & neurosurgery Cognitive psychology |
| Zdroj: | J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci |
| ISSN: | 1758-5368 1079-5014 |
| DOI: | 10.1093/geronb/gby090 |
| Popis: | Objectives Many real-life settings require decision makers to sort a predetermined set of outcomes or activities into a preferred sequence and people vary in whether they prefer to tackle the most challenging aspects first, leave them for the last, or intersperse them with less challenging outcomes. Prior research on age differences in sequence-preferences has focused on discrete and hypothetical events. The present study expands this work by examining sequence-preferences for a realistic, continuous, sustained, and cognitively challenging task. Methods Participants (N = 121, aged 21–86) were asked to complete 10 min of a difficult cognitive task (2-back), 10 min of an easy cognitive task (1-back), and 10 min of rest over the course of a 30-min interval. They could complete the tasks in any order and switch tasks as often as they wished and they were rewarded for correct performance. Additional measures included affective and physiological responses, task accuracy, time-perspective, and demographics. Results The majority of participants constructed sequences with decreasing task difficulty. Preferences for the general trend of the sequence were not significantly related to age, but the number of switches among the tasks decreased with age, and task-switching tended to incur greater accuracy decrements among older as compared to younger adults. Discussion We address potential methodological concerns, discuss theoretical implications, and consider potential real-life applications. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
|