Abstract
When an initial phase of cued task switching is followed by a phase of single-task trials, older adults show difficulties changing to the more efficient single-task mode of processing (Mayr & Liebscher, 2001). In Experiment 1, we show that these costs follow older adults’ continued tendency to inspect task cues even though these provide no new information. In Experiment 2, we included a condition in which task cues were eliminated from the display after the task-switching phase. In this condition, older adults behaved the same as younger adults, suggesting that the presence of the task cue is critical for observing age differences while switching from a “high-control” to a “low-control” mode of processing. We discuss our results in terms of a life-span shift with regard to the reliance on internal versus external sources of information under conditions of high-control demands.
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This work was supported through NIA Grants R01 AG19296-01A1 and R01 AG17024-01A1 and NIH Institutional Training Grant T32 AG00175.
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Spieler, D.H., Mayr, U. & Lagrone, S. Outsourcing cognitive control to the environment: Adult age differences in the use of task cues. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 13, 787–793 (2006). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193998
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193998