The Mismeasurement of Mind: Life-Span Changes in Paired-Associate-Learning Scores Reflect the “Cost” of Learning, Not Cognitive Decline
通过计算模拟和实验，发现配对联想学习测试中随年龄增长的成绩变化实际上是由学习过程本身的可预测效应造成的，而非认知能力衰退，这对理解成年期认知发展有重要启示。
The age-related declines observed in scores on paired-associate-learning (PAL) tests are widely taken as support for the idea that human cognitive capacities decline across the life span. In a computational simulation, we showed that the patterns of change in PAL scores are actually predicted by the models that formalize the associative learning process in other areas of behavioral and neuroscientific research. These models also predict that manipulating language exposure can reproduce the experience-related performance differences erroneously attributed to age-related decline in age-matched adults. Consistent with this, results showed that older bilinguals outperformed native speakers in a German PAL test, an advantage that increased with age. These analyses and results show that age-related PAL performance changes reflect the predictable effects of learning on the associability of test items, and indicate that failing to control for these effects is distorting the understanding of cognitive and brain development in adulthood.