Dual task demands on encoding and retrieval processes: evidence from healthy adult ageing.

Previous studies of dual-task performance have demonstrated that encoding and retrieval processes are differentially affected by the simultaneous performance of a secondary task. Whilst dual task demands during encoding have a detrimental effect on memory performance, dual task demands during retrieval have a detrimental effect on secondary task performance. However, dual task effects on memory during encoding appear unaffected by age, while effects at retrieval on secondary task performance are age sensitive. Most previous studies have focused on free recall or cued recall of word lists. In the current study, encoding and retrieval were examined in younger and older healthy adults performing a task typically thought to load verbal working memory, namely immediate serial ordered digit recall together with a response time (RT) task. In Experiment 1, the demands of a secondary RT task were varied as a function of response-to-stimulus interval, while in Experiment 2 the predictability of the stimulus location was manipulated. In both age groups, dual task during encoding, but not at retrieval, produced significant interference in memory performance and unlike most previous studies the impact at encoding was greater for the older group. In contrast, significantly slower RTs were demonstrated under dual task conditions during encoding and retrieval. Older adults produced significantly slower RTs than younger adults only for dual task at retrieval. Older people were more sensitive to time pressure in responding under dual task conditions, but neither group was sensitive to predictability of stimulus location. Results are consistent with the concept of a cognitive resource that supports dual task performance, and that is sensitive to the effects of age on memory encoding of items that rely heavily on the operation of verbal working memory resources. The age sensitivity to dual task only became apparent when effects at encoding and at retrieval were considered separately.