Abstract
The article describes a simulated “cooking breakfast” task in which participants must remember to start and stop cooking five foods so that all the foods are “ready” at the same time. In between starting and stopping operations, the participants also carried out a “table-setting” task as a filler activity. The breakfast task yields various measures of multitasking and executive control. Groups of younger and older adults performed the task; half of the participants in each group were bilinguals and the other half were monolinguals. The results showed substantial age-related decrements in most measures of executive control. Additionally, older bilinguals showed some advantages in task management over their monolingual peers.
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This research was supported by a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to the first author, a grant from NSERC to the second author, and a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to both authors.
Note—This article was accepted by the previous editorial team, when Colin M. MacLeod was Editor.
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Craik, F.I.M., Bialystok, E. Planning and task management in older adults: Cooking breakfast. Memory & Cognition 34, 1236–1249 (2006). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193268
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193268