Age-related switching costs in adulthood: “All or None Hypothesis” corollaries

Abstract

This study proposed, firstly, to test three of the five corollaries that comes from the “All or None Hypothesis” (Diamond in Developmental Psychology 45(1):130 138, 2009), in an adult population (young adults, older adults and oldest-old adults). Secondly, we aimed to analyse the functioning controlled mode changes, during three developmental stages in the adult population. The sample included 147 participants (61 adults, 63 older adults, and 23 oldest-old adults). Participants performed the Fingers Task (a modified version of the Arrows experimental task; see Davidson et al. in Neuropsychologia 44(11): 2037-2078, 2006). We found a clear decrease in behavioural measures (i.e. TR) associated with ageing in the discriminative and controlled cognitive processing mode. The obtained results verified the three age group corollaries and identified the described controlled mode changes at each age group (young, older and oldest-old adults), during adulthood.