Within-context assessment of age differences in working memory.
Five experiments were conducted to investigate the mechanisms by which age-related reductions in working memory capacity might mediate age-related declines in cognitive functioning. A prototypical cognitive task, cube comparison, was implemented on a computer to allow measures of the availability of different types of information while subjects were attempting to solve the task. Young and old adults were equivalent in a measure postulated to reflect the temporary preservation of untransformed stimulus information. However, older adults, relative to young adults, exhibited greater reductions in accuracy as the processing requirements increased, and they made significantly more redundant or repetitive requests for information. These results are consistent with the view that increased age may be associated with a decreased ability to transform or abstract information while also preserving the products of earlier processing.