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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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The psychological refractory period
— evidence of age differences in attentional time-sharing | | Author(s) | Philip A Allen, Albert F Smith, Heli Vires-Collins |
| Journal title | Psychology and Aging, vol 13, no 2, June 1998 |
| Pages | pp 218-229 |
| Keywords | Cognitive processes ; Mental speed ; Age groups [elderly] ; Young adults [20-25] ; Performance ; Comparison ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | This study examines whether there are age differences in time-sharing (i.e. the serial switching from one task to another) at the response-selection stage of processing by the brain. The psychological refractory period (PRP) refers in large part to the time necessary for an individual to serially process the response-selection stage of a task (T1) and then conduct the response-selection stage of processing for a second task, T2. The time between the two tasks (the stimulus onset asynchrony - SOA) in two experiments conducted was 150mins, 250 mins, 600 mins, and 1,100 mins for groups of younger and older adults. In Experiment 1 (T1 tone discrimination, T2 dot location), older adults showed a larger PRP effect than younger adults; some participants grouped their responses on some trials. In Experiment 2 (T1 dot location, T2 simultaneous letter matching), older adults continued to show a larger PRP effect than younger adults for T2. These experiments provide evidence that older adults (relative to younger adults) exhibit a decrement in time-sharing at the response stage of processing. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-980812002 A |
| Classmark | DA: DG: BB: SD6: 5H: 48: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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