Aging, Focus Switching, Task Switching – p. 1Aging, focus switching and task switching in a continuous calculation task:Evidence toward a new working memory control processPaul Verhaeghen and William J. Hoyer Syracuse UniversityRunning head: AGING, FOCUS SWITCHING, TASK SWITCHING

Aging, Focus Switching, Task Switching – p. 2AbstractThis study examined switching of the focus of attention in working memory in relation toglobal task switching in a continuous calculation task using two rules (midpoint and up-and-down) in a group of 25 younger and a group of 23 older adults. Age differencesemerged in accuracy when participants worked on two strings simultaneously(necessitating a focus switch); focus switching did not interact with age in the responsetime domain. No age differences were obtained for global task switching. Ex-Gaussiandecomposition showed a shift due to focus switching in all parameters, but a shift inleading edge only for task switching. The results suggest that task switching and focusswitching rely on different processes, and that there is a specific age-related deficit infocus switching.

Aging, Focus Switching, Task Switching – p. 3Aging, focus switching and task switching in a continuous calculation task:Evidence toward a new working memory control processAge-related deficits in cognitive functioning have been observed in a large variety of tasks, such as simple and choice reaction times, working memory tasks, tests of episodicmemory, tests of spatial and reasoning abilities, mental rotation, and visual search (for reviews, see e.g., Kausler, 1991; Salthouse, 1985, 1991). It has also been noted that manyof the observed declines are correlated across tasks (Lindenberger & Baltes, 1994;Salthouse & Ferrer-Caja, 2003;Verhaeghen & Salthouse, 1997), suggesting that a smallnumber of factors may account for the majority of age differences. Many researchershave claimed that the fundamental factors may well be relatively general processes or general aspects of cognition (e.g., Cerella, 1990; Hasher & Zacks, 1988; Li,Lindenberger, & Frensch, 2000; Salthouse, 1996).Early accounts of cognitive aging pointed to deficits in elementary processingresources, such as speed (Birren, 1965; Salthouse, 1996), but recently, attention hasturned to processes of executive control as a basic mechanism to explain age differencesin relatively complex aspects of cognition. Age effects in several aspects of cognitivecontrol have already been investigated; notably, task coordination (e.g., Mayr & Kliegl,1993; for a meta-analysis, see Verhaeghen, Steitz, Sliwinski, & Cerella, 2003), task switching (e.g., Mayr, Spieler, & Kliegl, 2001; for a meta-analysis, see Wasylyshyn,Verhaeghen, & Sliwinski, 2004), and inhibition (e.g., Hasher & Zacks, 1988; Hasher,Zacks, & May, 1999; for a computational approach, see Braver & Barch, 2002; for meta-analyses, see Verhaeghen & De Meersman, 1998a, 1998b). Recently, we (Verhaeghen &Basak, in press; Verhaeghen, Cerella, Bopp, & Basak, in press) have argued for the