Age-related impairment in executive functioning: updating, inhibition, shifting, and access

Miyake, Friedman, Emerson, Witzki, Howerter and Wager (2000) have argued that the central executive is fractionated consisting of at least three separable component processes: updating, shifting, and inhibition. The Wisconsin Card Sort Test, random letter generation, Brooks spatial sequences, reading and computation span, word fluency, and a measure of dual task performance were administered to 95 individuals aged between 20 and 81, average age 41.89. The executive measures were factor analyzed, using the oblique rotation method, yielding four factors. The factor structure obtained was broadly consistent with Miyake et al's. However, an additional factor, the only one not to show a significant performance decline with age, was also obtained and was believed to reflect the efficiency of access to long-term memory.