Enhancing Multiple Object Analysis Skills Across Early and Late Adulthood Through Diverse Tasks

Abstract

Tasks on multiple targets involve, to some extent, at least two capacity-limited classes of mechanisms: attentional individuation and visuo-spatial working memory (vWM). It is also known that these mechanisms tend to decline with aging. In this study, we hypothesized that if both mechanisms underlie the analysis of multiple objects, then training one task involving multiple objects should benefit other tasks requiring multiple object processing, regardless of task contents or instructions. In addition, we predicted that older adults would benefit more from the training protocol. To test these hypotheses, we trained two groups of young and older participants, one with a delayed match-to-sample (DMTS) task and one with rapid enumeration. Training effects (compared to test/re-test effects of a passive control group) were assessed on both DMTS and rapid enumeration. Results indicated a training-related benefit within and across tasks, regardless of age. Older adults’ gain from training was larger compared to the young counterpart. In addition, and irrespective of age, individual differences in baseline performance correlate with training outcomes, with compensatory activity likely occurring for low-performing individuals.