Practice, task performance, and age

A study of data from 194,695 users of an online task-switching game finds that practice can improve the time required to activate relevant tasks, but has little effect on the time required to deactivate irrelevant tasks; additionally, practice particularly benefited users in the 71-80-year age group whose performance, after extensive practice, was similar to young users who had little practice.

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Article # 19-06788: "A large-scale analysis of task switching practice effects across the lifespan," by Mark Steyvers, Guy E. Hawkins, Frini Karayanidis, and Scott D. Brown.

MEDIA CONTACT: Mark Steyvers, University of California, Irvine, CA; e-mail: mark.steyvers@uci.edu