Optimal Aging Series

Dr. Fergus I.M. Craik
Rotman Research Institute
Professor Emeritus
University of Toronto

This talk will examine the proposition that age-related memory problems are largely attributable to declines in attentional resources and executive control. It will illustrate the arguments with experimental results from Fergus Craik's lab.

The questions discussed will include the notions

• that division of attention in young adults mimics the effects of aging on memory,
• that such effects are largely at encoding, and
• that divided attention has surprisingly little effect on retrieval despite the fact that retrieval processes are resource-demanding, especially in older adults.

Other topics will consider

• age differences in working memory and how such differences may vary with task demands and
• age-related problems with self-initiation and with retrieval of highly specific information
• to what extent retrieval difficulties in older adults are reflective of problems of executive control
• how do reductions in encoding efficiency affect later implicit and explicit retrieval, and
• are ‘attentional resources’ and ‘cognitive control’ simply two labels for the same concept?

Reception to follow