Effect of age on forward and backward span tasks

Abstract

The central executive component of working memory has been argued to play an important role in the performance of span tasks, particularly backward span. Age-related decline in central executive function has also been reported, and yet there have been inconsistent findings to indicate that with increasing age, the discrepancy between forward and backward span increases. A secondary analysis of the Wechsler Memory Scale-Third Edition standardization sample (N 5 1030) was performed to investigate this relationship. It was hypothesized on the basis of past research indicating an age-related decline in central executive performance, that backward digit and spatial span performance would decrease at a greater rate than forward span performance. However, the results indicated that the rate of age-related performance decline was equivalent for both measures. It is proposed that both forward and backward span tasks recruit central executive resources for successful task performance. (JINS, 2004, 10, 475-481.)

Influence of response prepotency strength, general working memory resources, and specific working memory load on the ability to inhibit predominant responses: A comparison of young and elderly participants

“…Decreased span size in normal aging has often been reported in the literature (Grégoire and Van der Linden, 1997;Hester, Kinsella, and Ong, 2004). Similarly, we observed poorer performance on the forward digit span task, attesting to the reduction in working memory capacity in our sample of older adults.…”

Strictly Lobar Cerebral Microbleeds Are Associated With Cognitive Impairment

“…Verbal executive function: digit backward test. 16 We defined global cognitive impairment as an MMSE score <24 in well-educated people (education ≥6 years) or <14 in less-educated people (education <6 years).…”

Constructivist developmental theory is needed in developmental neuroscience

“…Misleading tasks include dual-tasks paradigms 54,59 and backward span tasks. 60,61 Tasks are misleading (conflicting, with interfering processes) when they activate information-bearing processes such as schemes or schemas (i.e., complex representational schemes) that are mutually incompatible and compete with each other for application to the task. For instance, in a backwards digit span task the automatised habit of saying digits forward competes with the prescribed instruction of saying digits backwards.…”

“…This number of effortfully activated taskrelevant schemes (not otherwise activated) is a clear index of effective complexity-in terms of an act of mental attention needed for the task. In contrast, facilitating tasks, such as standard/forward span tasks, 60,61 can be often solved by using habitual/automatised schemes, which might not require effortful attention, or require much less.…”