Age and planning tasks: the influence of ecological validity.
Planning ability is important in many everyday tasks, such as cooking and shopping. Previous studies have investigated aging effects on planning, looking at either widely used laboratory-based neuropsychological tasks such as the Tower of London (TOL) or more naturalistic planning tasks, such as organizing shopping errands. In the current study, we compare the effects of normal adult aging on both the TOL and a more ecologically valid planning task, the Plan-a-Day (PAD) task. There was a reliable decline in TOL planning performance with age, but no significant correlation between age and PAD planning performance. Age-related variance was partly explained by variance in information processing speed and education. It is proposed that in more ecologically valid planning tasks, age changes in processing speed can be compensated for by task-related knowledge. Implications for everyday planning performance by older adults are considered.
School of Psychology, College of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. louise.phillips@abdn.ac.uk
Louise H
LH
Phillips
Matthias
M
Kliegel
Mike
M
Martin
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010934:Planning Techniques; D011340:Problem Solving; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis