Aging and Dual-Task Performance: A Meta-Analysis

Paul Verhaeghen, David W. Steitz, Martin J. Sliwinski, and John Cerella

Syracuse University

The relations between dual-task effects and aging were examined through a meta-analysis of 33 studies(with 48 independent participant groups) using latency as the dependent measure and 30 studies (with 40independent participant groups) focusing on accuracy. Brinley plots and state traces were derived, and amodel to explicate different types of complexity (additive and multiplicative) was developed. The effectsof dual-task processing on latency were additive, and this additive cost was larger in older adults than inyounger adults and larger than predicted from general slowing. This cost was small and independent of task complexity. The effects of dual-task processing on logit-transformed accuracy were likewiseadditive, but no specific age deficit was associated with this dual-task cost.

With aging, performance on a large number of cognitive tasksdeclines (see Craik & Salthouse, 2000, and Park & Schwarz, 2000,for edited volumes of narrative reviews). Moreover, it has beenfound that these performance decrements are intercorrelated (seeVerhaeghen & Salthouse, 1997, for a meta-analysis), suggestingthat decline in a single cognitive primitive may lie at the founda-tion of those widespread age-related declines in cognitive perfor-mance. This cognitive primitive has mostly been identified withthe concept of mental resources (see, e.g., Salthouse, 1991, 1996).Resource explanations claim that age-related differences in (a)mental speed, (b) mental workspace, and/or (c) mental energy areresponsible for a large part of the observed age-related changes inmore complex aspects of cognition.To date, the role of

speed

has been the main focus of researchin this field (see Salthouse, 1991, 1996, for an overview). One of the key discoveries in cognitive aging in the last quarter of theprevious century is that, within relatively broad task domains (e.g.,lexical processing or visuospatial processing), the effects of age onreaction-time performance can be well described by a single linearfunction (see, e.g., Cerella, Poon, & Williams, 1980; Hale &Myerson, 1996). It has been demonstrated that such a pattern of within-domain general linear slowing can be explained using asingle underlying mechanism (Bamber, 1979; Cerella, 1994; Dunn& Kirsner, 1988). The slope of the function relating performanceof the old to performance of the young can be considered anestimate of the single age-related slowing factor that operates oncentral processes (i.e., all processes intervening between the sen-sory and motor stages of processing; see Cerella, 1990, for amathematical derivation of this claim; see Ratcliff, Spieler, &McKoon, 2000, for an alternative interpretation; and Myerson,Adams, Hale, & Jenkins, 2003, for a defense of the originalinterpretation).The pervasiveness of the phenomenon of linear slowing effectshas led many researchers to propose it as a new null hypothesis forcognitive aging (e.g., Cerella, 1994; Faust, Balota, Spieler, &Ferraro, 1999; Madden, Pierce, & Allen, 1992; Perfect & Maylor,2000). That is, it has been proposed that generalized slowingshould be considered the baseline phenomenon of cognitive aging:The starting point of any analysis should be that a particular set of conditions is expected to yield a linear relationship between laten-cies of younger and older adults (with a slope larger than one andtypically a small negative intercept). This expectation has impli-cations for the way condition effects should be measured. Typi-cally, condition effects in latency data are expressed in additiveterms, that is, the time needed in a baseline condition is subtractedfrom the time needed in a critical condition, and this index is thenused in subsequent analyses. However, given that the empiricalrelationship between latencies of younger and older adults is linear(and near multiplicative), this traditional way of looking at datagives rise to incorrect interpretations for the simple reason thatmore complex conditions take longer to process. Because complexconditions take longer, the absolute age difference in more com-plex conditions will, by virtue of this near-multiplicative relation-ship, be larger than the age difference in less complex conditions(Cerella et al., 1980). Conversely, going from simple to morecomplex conditions, the condition effect will be larger in olderadults than in younger adults. Here is a numerical example. Sup-pose that there is a baseline task that takes younger adults 500 msto complete and that the peripheral component is 200 ms. Assumean age-related slowing factor of 1.5 (healthy 60 to 70-year-oldadults are typically 1.5 times, or 50%, slower than college-ageadults). One can then expect a reaction time of 200 ms



(1.5



300 ms)



650 ms for older adults. (Typically, peripheral process-ing is also slowed in older adults, but by a very small factor.) Nowintroduce a more complex version of the task, which increasesreaction time for the young by 500 ms, leading to a total timeof 1,000 ms. The reaction time expected for older adults is now200 ms



(1.5



800 ms)



1,400 ms. For the case at hand, an agedifference of 150 ms is recorded in the baseline condition and oneof 400 ms in the more complex condition, despite the fact that no

Paul Verhaeghen, David W. Steitz, Martin J. Sliwinski, and JohnCerella, Department of Psychology, Syracuse University.This research was supported in part by Grant AG-16201 from theNational Institute on Aging. A portion of this research was presented at theInternational Congress of Psychology, Stockholm, Sweden, July 2000.John Cerella is the author of the appendixes.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to PaulVerhaeghen, Department of Psychology, 430 Huntington Hall, SyracuseUniversity, Syracuse, New York 13244-2340. E-mail: pverhaeg@psych.syr.edu

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additional deficit is associated with the specific processes under-lying the increased complexity.Research into the second aspect of mental resources, namely,

workspace,

has typically focused on working memory capacity. Ithas been shown that working memory capacity declines withadvancing age (for a meta-analysis, see Bopp & Verhaeghen,2002; Verhaeghen, Marcoen, & Goossens, 1993) and that workingmemory capacity mediates between age and more complex aspectsof cognition, such as episodic memory, reasoning, and spatialability (for a meta-analysis, see Verhaeghen & Salthouse, 1997).Some researchers have claimed that certain aspects of workingmemory functioning are partially independent of processing speedand may yield specific age-related effects. For instance, it has beenshown that tasks requiring online processing concurrent with stor-age and retrieval from working memory yield age differences inspeed and accuracy that are larger than those predicted from taskswithout such demands (see, e.g., Kliegl, Mayr, & Oberauer, 2000;Mayr & Kliegl, 1993; Verhaeghen, Kliegl, & Mayr, 1997).The third aspect of resources,

mental energy,

has typically beenoperationalized as attentional ability. There is a rather large bodyof literature on the relationship between aging and at least twoaspects of attention, namely, selective and divided attention (forrecent narrative overviews, see McDowd & Shaw, 2000, andRogers, 2000). Verhaeghen and De Meersman (1998a, 1998b)conducted meta-analyses on age differences in two tasks thatmeasure selective attention, namely the Stroop color

–

word task and negative priming. It was found that once age differences in thebaseline condition were taken into account, the observed agedeficits in Stroop interference and location negative priming dis-appeared and that there was only a slight deficit in identity nega-tive priming (and this might have been associated with a memorydeficit rather than with age differences in attention per se). Thismakes it unlikely that age-related difficulties with selective atten-tion are the source of latency differences in more complex cogni-tive tasks (see, e.g., Hasher & Zacks, 1988). Rather, mental slow-ing (whatever its cause) may be the sole source of the observed agedifferences in selective attention paradigms.What about aging and divided attention? The paradigm mostoften used to measure divided attention is dual-task performance,that is, simultaneous processing of two (and sometimes more)sources of information. There is little doubt that mental resourcesare needed to divide attention among two or more tasks (seePashler, 1998, for an overview of theories pertaining to dual-task performance and its demands on the cognitive system). There isalso little doubt that there is an age-related decline in dual-task performance in the sense that older adults are slower under dual-task conditions than younger adults are (for reviews, see, e.g.,Hartley & Little, 1999; McDowd & Shaw, 2000). However, underthe null hypothesis of general slowing, mental slowing is to beexpected in any kind of cognitive task. The real question thenbecomes, Are older adults slower under dual-task conditions thancan be expected from the age difference observed under single-task conditions? If the answer were affirmative, this would beevidence for a deficit in divided attention over and beyond theeffect of normal, general age-related slowing. If the answer werenegative, then the age-related deficit in divided attention may bemerely another instance of the general slowing that pervades thecognitive system with advancing age.Given that dual-task performance may require the division of mental resources among tasks, it is also reasonable to assume thatunder certain circumstances, accuracy would decrease when asecondary task gets compounded with a given single task. Thesame question that we have asked about age-related slowing indual-task performance can be asked about accuracy and agingunder dual-task conditions: Are there age-related differences inaccuracy under the dual-task paradigm beyond those observedunder single-task conditions? (Note that the age difference neednot be in the direction of lower accuracy. It can also take thedirection of higher accuracy under dual-task conditions than undersingle-task conditions, if older adults sacrifice speed to preserveaccuracy.)In the present article, we report results from a meta-analysis onaging and its effects on dual-task performance as measured byreaction time and accuracy. Two types of graphical analysis wereapplied to the data using hierarchical linear modeling (Sliwinski &Hall, 1998). First, a state-trace analysis was conducted, that is, weregressed performance in dual-task conditions on performance insingle-task performance separately for younger and older adults.We then tested whether a single line sufficed to explain the data orwhether two different lines (one for younger adults, one for olderadults) were needed to adequately describe the relation betweendual-task performance and single-task performance. If a single linewere to fit the data, it would imply that there was no age differencein the relation between single- and dual-task performance. If twolines were to appear (one for young, one for older adults), theinterpretation would depend on the form the dual-task cost took (see below). It has been shown that state-trace analysis is lessconservative than the more traditional Brinley analysis when sam-pling variance is large in comparison to the experimental effect(Verhaeghen & De Meersman, 1998a). Second, we conducted aBrinley analysis (see, e.g., Brinley, 1965; Cerella et al., 1980), thatis, performance of older adults was analyzed as a function of performance of younger adults. In this analysis, we examinedwhether a single line sufficed to explain the data or whether twodifferent lines (one for single-task performance, one for dual-task performance) were needed to adequately describe the relationbetween the performance of younger and older adults. If two lineswere needed, this would be direct evidence for age sensitivity of the processes involved in dual-task performance.Theoretically, dual-task costs can take many forms. For thelatency data, we examined the two simplest cases: additive andmultiplicative costs. First, dual tasking may serve to add an addi-tional step in the chain of processing operations needed for thesingle task (e.g., a task-switching or task-preparedness stage; All-port, Styles, & Hsieh, 1994; Monsell, 1996). In that case, thedual-task cost would be additive, that is, it would add a fixednumber of milliseconds to the reaction time. (Note that this is themodel that is implicitly assumed in most of the literature, wheredual-task costs are calculated as the difference between latency inthe dual-task condition and latency in the single-task condition.) Asecond possibility is that the effects of dual tasking may bedistributed across the central components of the single task, slow-ing each of these components by a fixed ratio. This implies that asthe complexity of the single task (as indicated by its latency)increases, so would the dual-task cost. In that case, dual task costswould be multiplicative on the latency of the single task. If oneassumes that the age deficit in central processes takes the usual

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VERHAEGHEN, STEITZ, SLIWINSKI, AND CERELLA

multiplicative form within families of processes (see, e.g., Cerella,1990; Hale & Myerson, 1996), then the choice of model fordual-task costs will lead to distinct predictions concerning the typeof linear functions found in both Brinley and state-trace analyses.In Appendix A, we formalize these models and their consequencesfor the dual- versus single-task traces in Brinley space and for theyoung versus old trace in state-trace space. As can be seen inAppendix A, it is only the convergence of evidence from bothtypes of analysis that can answer the question of what form thedual-task cost takes and whether or not there is an age differencein this dual-task cost.The focus of our analysis is on the description of age differ-ences, not on general effects of different manipulations in task orstimulus material on dual-task processing. Some of these effects,however, may interact with age differences and are thereforeexplored here. We included five potential moderating variables inour analysis. These emerged partially from theoretical analysis andpartially out of convenience, that is, they represent variables thatvaried in a systematic way within and across the studies in ourdatabase. The first moderating variable is whether or not theprocessing requirements of the primary task are predominantlysensorimotor (e.g., simple reaction time) or cognitive (e.g., visualsearch) in nature. Sensorimotor tasks presumably place less heavydemands on attentional resources than cognitive tasks. Addition-ally, age differences in sensorimotor tasks are smaller than those incognitive tasks (Cerella & Hale, 1994). For these two reasons, agedifferences in dual-task costs might be smaller in sensorimotortasks than in central tasks. The second moderating variable iswhether the primary task is verbal (e.g., working memory span) orvisuospatial (e.g., visual search) in nature. Age differences inlatency for verbal tasks are typically smaller than those in visuo-spatial tasks (see, e.g., Hale & Myerson, 1996), and this distinctionmight moderate the age difference in dual-task costs as well. Thethird moderating variable is whether or not the input modality forthe primary task (visual or auditory) matches the input modalityfor the secondary task. Within-modality dual tasking generallyyields larger costs than between-modalities dual tasking (Pashler,1998, pp. 160

–

161), and it may be possible that this difference indifficulty also leads to an age difference in dual-task costs. Thefourth moderating variable is input modality of the primary task (visual or auditory); the fifth is output modality of the primary task (manual or vocal).

Method

Sample of Studies

Studies were collected by consulting the PsycINFO electronic database,through personal contacts, and by checking references found in the articlesthus retrieved. The search was concluded in July 2001. Inclusion criteriawere: (a) The study contained experiments in which a comparison wasmade between age groups, namely, younger adults (with a mean age of 30years or younger) versus older adults (with a mean age of 60 years andolder); and (b) the study compared either latencies or accuracy or bothunder dual-task conditions with the corresponding measure in single-task performance. Table 1 presents a listing of all independent groups for thelatency analyses; Table 2 provides a listing of all independent groups forthe accuracy analyses. No study was excluded for any reason other thanthose stated above.

State-Trace Analysis

Latency analysis.

For the state-trace analysis, the mean latency data of dual-task conditions were regressed on the mean latency data of single-task conditions. Mean latency data were expressed in milliseconds. The as-sumption is that a linear model adequately captures the relation betweensingle- and dual-task latencies; the rationale for this expectation is derivedin Appendix A.Traditionally (see, e.g., Cerella et al., 1980; Hale & Myerson, 1996;Verhaeghen & De Meersman, 1998a, 1998b), meta-analyses in the field of cognitive aging have been conducted using pooled or aggregate regressionprocedures. Pooled regression uses the reaction-time data from any of thesingle- and dual-task experimental conditions from each study and ignoresthe nesting of conditions within studies (see, e.g., Cerella, 1985, 1991).Sliwinski and Hall (1998) described serious statistical problems that ariseusing pooled regression, including ambiguous regression coefficients andbiased significance testing. In the present study, we used aggregate regres-sion (weighting for sample size) for our first pass over the data, that is, foridentifying outlying studies. The aggregate regression approach uses onlybetween-studies variability and does not provide information about thestate-trace function for any single study. To take full advantage of thenested structure of conditions within studies, we used multilevel modelingprocedures to obtain state-trace functions for each study, to obtain averageparameters (and their variances) across studies, and to compare the param-eters from these functions in the old and young samples. This analyticapproach required the specification of a

condition-level model,

which repre-sents the mean reaction time for each dual-task condition as a function of thereaction time from a corresponding single-task condition within each study:





, (1)where

is the average dual-task reaction time from Condition

in Study

t, S

is the average single-task reaction time from Condition

in Study



is the intercept,



is the slope relating single- to dual-task reaction timesfor Study

and

is the residual for Condition

in Study

The

study-levelmodel

then represents each regression parameter as a function of theoverall mean and each study

’

s unique effect as follows:











, (2)where



is the average intercept across all studies,



is the average slopeacross all studies, and

and

are the increments to intercept and slopeassociated with Study

The fixed effects,



and



, provide precisionweighted estimates of the average within-study intercept and slope,whereas the random effects,

and

, provide estimates of the within-study regression parameter variance.Age effects were examined in the condition level model by introducing adummy variable that codes for age group (age



0 if young, age



1 if old):







(

age

)





(

age



)



. (3)The parameter



conveys the effect of age group on the intercept of thestate-trace, and the parameter



conveys the effect of age group on theslope. If the average





is larger than 0.0 by a statistically significantamount, coupled with an absence of age difference in





, then the differ-ence between the state-traces of younger and older adults is situated in theintercept only, which would be evidence of a purely additive age deficit onthe dual-task effect. If





is larger than 0.0 by a statistically significantamount, then the slopes of the state-traces of younger and older adults aresignificantly different.

Accuracy analysis.

The state-trace analysis on accuracy data (i.e.,percentage correct) was conducted analogously to the state-trace analysison latency data. However, no good rationale exists for expecting a linearrelation between accuracies of single and dual tasks. Additional difficulties

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AGING AND DUAL-TASK PERFORMANCE