Age-Related Differences in Sequential Modulations of Poorer-Strategy Effects

Abstract

To determine how younger and older adults modulate execution of strategies across successive trials, we asked participants to accomplish a computational estimation task (i.e., provide approximate products to two-digit multiplication problems like 38 × 74). For each problem, they were cued to execute a better versus a poorer strategy. Their performance revealed sequential modulations of poorer-strategy effects (i.e., longer solution times and larger error rates when asked to execute a poorer than a better strategy). That is, poorer-strategy effects were smaller on current problems after using a poorer strategy on preceding problems than after using a better strategy. Moreover, sequential modulations of these poorer-strategy effects were smaller in older than in younger adults, especially older adults with low-cognitive control skills (as measured by conflict adaptation effects in the Simon task). Our findings suggest that these sequential modulations may result from executive control mechanisms, the efficiency of which is known to decrease in older adults. These findings have important implications regarding mechanisms underlying strategy execution and aging effects on strategic variations.

Strategies for written additions in adults

“…Finally, a factor that could also influence strategy choices is the succession of strategies. It has indeed been shown repeatedly that using a strategy on a specific problem can impact the choice of the strategy on the subsequent one (Lemaire & Hinault, 2014;Lemaire & Lecacheur, 2010;Uittenhove, Poletti, Dufau, & Lemaire, 2013). All those avenues for research suggest that written calculation could benefit from more attention from researchers and our first attempt for a precise description of adults' behaviour in this field might constitute a starting point.…”

Does the Number of Available Strategies Change How Children Perform Cognitive Tasks? Insights from Arithmetic

“…On each trial, the experimenter recorded children's response and strategy used. Following previous studies using this procedure (e.g., Lemaire & Brun, 2014Hinault, Lemaire, & Phililips, 2016;Lemaire & Hinault, 2014;Uittenhove & Lemaire, 2012, 2013, timing of each response began when the problem appeared on the screen and ended when the experimenter pressed the left mouse button, the latter event occurring as soon as possible after the participant's responses.…”

“…Children were also asked to solve another set of 16 problems and were cued with the other strategy on all these 16 problems. MRD and MRU were tested because previous works showed that both fifth and seventh graders know and spontaneously use these two mixed-rounding strategies (LeFevre et al, 1993), and because previous works on relative strategy execution found that MRD is easier than MRU and yields better performance (e.g., Hinault, Lemaire, & Phillips, 2016;Lemaire & Brun, 2014;Lemaire & Hinault, 2014;Uittenhove & Lemaire, 2012).…”

Aging effects in sequential modulations of poorer-strategy effects during execution of memory strategies

“…Following Miyake et al (2000), cognitive control can be viewed as involving inhibition (i.e., not giving an automatic answer when necessary, and/or suppressing attention to irrelevant information), working-memory updating (i.e., maintaining representations or replacing them with more relevant ones) and cognitive flexibility (i.e., switching between multiple tasks, strategies, or representations). Lemaire and Hinault (2014) proposed that poorer-strategy effects result from the inhibition of the more automatically activated better strategy to execute the cued poorer strategy. As a consequence, these control mechanisms are maintained and/or in a higher state of activation on the next problems, enabling participants to prepare them-selves to execute the required, poorer strategy with no interference from the more readily available better strategy.…”