Aging and dual-task training

The efficacy of two methods of training dual-task skills was examined in this experiment. Thirty older subjects (Mean age = 67.8 years) were trained using either variable priority or fixed priority training. Subjects performed two tasks, a gauge monitoring task and a letter arithmetic task, both separately and together. Subjects in the variable priority group were trained to vary their processing priorities between the letter arithmetic and monitoring tasks. The fixed priority subjects were trained to devote equal priority to the two tasks. Subjects then transferred to a complex scheduling task which was paired with a paired-associates task. Variable priority subjects exhibited an initial performance cost relative to fixed priority subjects. By the end of training, however, variable priority subjects exhibited superior performance as compared to fixed priority subjects. The performance of variable priority subjects was also superior on transfer tasks with which the subjects had no prior experience, suggesting that variable priority training may involve a generalizable time-sharing skill.