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Are there age differences in intraindividual variability in working memory performance?

Shannon Robertson1, Joel Myerson, Sandra Hale

  • 1Department of Psychology, Washington University in St. Louis, Campus Box 1125, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130-4899, USA. serobert@artsci.wustl.edu

The Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences
|January 10, 2006
PubMed
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Older adults do not exhibit greater intraindividual variability in working memory (WM) performance compared to younger adults. Findings challenge theories suggesting increased moment-to-moment fluctuations in older individuals.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Aging research

Background:

  • Previous research, mainly using response time (RT) data, suggests increased intraindividual variability with age.
  • Theories of frontal lobe aging predict greater performance fluctuations in older adults.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether older adults display greater intraindividual variability in working memory (WM) performance than younger adults.
  • To test theories of frontal lobe aging concerning age-related performance fluctuations.

Main Methods:

  • Younger and older adults completed three verbal working memory tasks of varying complexity.
  • Participants also performed a same-different judgment response time (RT) task.
  • Intraindividual variability was assessed for each task and group.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • Both age groups showed more performance variability on complex span tasks than on simple span tasks.
  • Older adults exhibited greater variability on the RT task, aligning with prior studies.
  • No significant difference in variability was found for the working memory tasks between the age groups.

Conclusions:

  • The study's findings do not support theories predicting increased moment-to-moment performance fluctuations in older adults.
  • Age-related variability in cognitive tasks may be task-dependent, not a general phenomenon.
  • Working memory performance variability does not appear to increase with age.