Cognitive skill acquisition and transfer in younger and older adults.
Psychology and AgingPublished 1 January 2001Open access
Dayna R. Touron, William J. Hoyer, John Cerella
Citations32
SJR quartileQ1
SJR score1.58
SNIP1.45
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TL;DR
Age differences favoring young adults in improvement span, learning rate, and asymptote are revealed, and the beneficial effects of repetitions on 1st-set response times were attributable to algorithmic speedup and to the retrieval of instances, whereas improvements in the speed of 2nd-set responses were attributable primarily to item retrieval.
Abstract
The acquisition of cognitive skills often depends on 1 of (or a combination of) 2 processes, the execution of an algorithm, and the retrieval of problem instances. This study examined the effects of age and repetition of problem instances on the production and verification of solutions to 2 serially presented sets of alphabet arithmetic problems. Analyses of the parameters derived from power-function fits for individuals revealed age differences favoring young adults in improvement span, learning rate, and asymptote. For both age groups, the beneficial effects of repetitions on 1st-set response times were attributable to algorithmic speedup and to the retrieval of instances, whereas improvements in the speed of 2nd-set response times were attributable primarily to item retrieval.
Keywords
PsychologyComputer ScienceMathematics
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