Skilled performance: Effects of adult age and experience on elementary processes.

Abstract

Despite a general neglect in contemporary research of the role of practice on the performance of simple components of skill, considerable evidence indicates that ex-perience leads to substantial improvement in detection, discrimination, ani speeded classification. One goal of the present research was to identify the mechanisms re-sponsible for practice-related improvement in such elementary tasks. A second goal was to determine whether there are adult age differences in the magnitude of practice-related improvement on simple perceptual and cognitive skills or in the mechanisms used to achieve that improvement. Eight young adults (ages 19 to 27 years) and 8 older adults (ages 62 to 73 years) performed four simple tasks for 5l experimental sessions. On several sessions the subjects received qualitatively or quantitatively different stimuli to determine the mech-anisms responsible for improvement. A concurrent reaction-time task was also per-formed at three different periods to assess the level of residual capacity after various amounts of practice. The results were interpreted as suggesting that improvement is due to shifts in the