Task switching in old participants: A potential interplay between strategy and cognitive ability
Task-switching cost is highly reliable in old participants. However, in a Stroop-switching paradigm that compared old musicians with old non-musicians (Experiment 1A), task-switching costs were not consistent. For non-musicians, the task-switching costs were significant in the congruent and neutral...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2021-03-01
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| Series: | Acta Psychologica |
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| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691821000032 |
| _version_ | 1818878906032193536 |
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| author | Yiye Xu Yeopham Nyeong Sheng Yu Yun Yu Bingxin Li Chengyang Han Xiangqian Li |
| author_facet | Yiye Xu Yeopham Nyeong Sheng Yu Yun Yu Bingxin Li Chengyang Han Xiangqian Li |
| author_sort | Yiye Xu |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Task-switching cost is highly reliable in old participants. However, in a Stroop-switching paradigm that compared old musicians with old non-musicians (Experiment 1A), task-switching costs were not consistent. For non-musicians, the task-switching costs were significant in the congruent and neutral trials, but not in the incongruent trials. For musicians, the task-switching costs disappeared completely. We suspected that besides following task rules, old participants might also apply a stimulus-based strategy called the target-first strategy. In Experiment 1B and 2, participants in Experiment 1A were invited again to perform two more Stroop-switching paradigms. To encourage the participants to use task rules, in Experiment 1B we removed the neutral trials but found the same results as in Experiment 1A. In Experiment 2, when inserting a cue-target interval in the Stroop-switching paradigm, both musicians and non-musicians produced reliable task-switching costs in all trial conditions. Note that younger participants had reliable task-switching costs in Experiment 1B and 2. We suggest that older participants preferred the target-first strategy to the task rules-based strategy because the former was easy to implant although it was less flexible. Besides task-switching costs, we found that old musicians had less interference effect than old non-musicians in Experiment 1B. In all three experiments, old musicians had shorter RTs than old non-musicians, which might be due to differences in strategies apart from cognitive abilities. We propose that without considering the strategy preference, some previous studies might misestimate the difference between old and young participants in terms of task-switching performance and interference control. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-19T14:21:37Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-2aeae1d2c82d4b56ad49707e671e9ec5 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 0001-6918 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-19T14:21:37Z |
| publishDate | 2021-03-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Acta Psychologica |
| spelling | doaj.art-2aeae1d2c82d4b56ad49707e671e9ec52022-12-21T20:17:45ZengElsevierActa Psychologica0001-69182021-03-01214103253Task switching in old participants: A potential interplay between strategy and cognitive abilityYiye Xu0Yeopham Nyeong1Sheng Yu2Yun Yu3Bingxin Li4Chengyang Han5Xiangqian Li6Institute of Sociology, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Shanghai, China; School of Social Development and Public Policy, Fudan University, Shanghai, ChinaSchool of Social Development and Public Policy, Fudan University, Shanghai, ChinaSchool of Social Development and Public Policy, Fudan University, Shanghai, ChinaInsitiute of International and Comparative Education, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China; School of Education, Shanghai Normal Univerisy, Shanghai, ChinaChinese Academy of Sciences, Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, ChinaDepartment of Psychology and Institute of Brain Science, College of Education, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, ChinaSchool of Social Development and Public Policy, Fudan University, Shanghai, China; School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China; Corresponding author at: School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai 200438, China.Task-switching cost is highly reliable in old participants. However, in a Stroop-switching paradigm that compared old musicians with old non-musicians (Experiment 1A), task-switching costs were not consistent. For non-musicians, the task-switching costs were significant in the congruent and neutral trials, but not in the incongruent trials. For musicians, the task-switching costs disappeared completely. We suspected that besides following task rules, old participants might also apply a stimulus-based strategy called the target-first strategy. In Experiment 1B and 2, participants in Experiment 1A were invited again to perform two more Stroop-switching paradigms. To encourage the participants to use task rules, in Experiment 1B we removed the neutral trials but found the same results as in Experiment 1A. In Experiment 2, when inserting a cue-target interval in the Stroop-switching paradigm, both musicians and non-musicians produced reliable task-switching costs in all trial conditions. Note that younger participants had reliable task-switching costs in Experiment 1B and 2. We suggest that older participants preferred the target-first strategy to the task rules-based strategy because the former was easy to implant although it was less flexible. Besides task-switching costs, we found that old musicians had less interference effect than old non-musicians in Experiment 1B. In all three experiments, old musicians had shorter RTs than old non-musicians, which might be due to differences in strategies apart from cognitive abilities. We propose that without considering the strategy preference, some previous studies might misestimate the difference between old and young participants in terms of task-switching performance and interference control.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691821000032Cognitive flexibilityAgingStimulus-response mappingInterference controlTask-switching cost |
| spellingShingle | Yiye Xu Yeopham Nyeong Sheng Yu Yun Yu Bingxin Li Chengyang Han Xiangqian Li Task switching in old participants: A potential interplay between strategy and cognitive ability Acta Psychologica Cognitive flexibility Aging Stimulus-response mapping Interference control Task-switching cost |
| title | Task switching in old participants: A potential interplay between strategy and cognitive ability |
| title_full | Task switching in old participants: A potential interplay between strategy and cognitive ability |
| title_fullStr | Task switching in old participants: A potential interplay between strategy and cognitive ability |
| title_full_unstemmed | Task switching in old participants: A potential interplay between strategy and cognitive ability |
| title_short | Task switching in old participants: A potential interplay between strategy and cognitive ability |
| title_sort | task switching in old participants a potential interplay between strategy and cognitive ability |
| topic | Cognitive flexibility Aging Stimulus-response mapping Interference control Task-switching cost |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691821000032 |
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