TY - JOUR PY - 2000// TI - Memorizing while walking: increase in dual-task costs from young adulthood to old age JO - Psychology and aging A1 - Lindenberger, U. A1 - Marsiske, M. A1 - Baltes, P. B. SP - 417 EP - 436 VL - 15 IS - 3 N2 - The dual task of memorizing word lists while walking was predicted to become more difficult with age because balance and gait are in greater need of "attentional resources." Forty-seven young (ages 20-30 years), 45 middle-aged (40-50), and 48 old (60-70) adults were trained to criterion in a mnemonic technique and instructed to walk quickly and accurately on 2 narrow tracks of different path complexity. Then. participants encoded the word lists while sitting, standing, or walking on either track; likewise, speed and accuracy of walking performance were assessed with and without concurrent memory encoding. Dual-task costs increased with age in both domains; relative to young adults, the effect size of the overall increase was 0.98 standard deviation units for middle-aged and 1.47 standard deviation units for old adults. It is argued that sensory and motor aspects of behavior are increasingly in need of cognitive control with advancing age.
LA - SN - 0882-7974 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1037//0882-7974.15.3.417 ID - ref1 ER -