title: The decline of verbal and visuospatial working memory across the adult life span.
abstract: It has been well established that working memory abilities decrease with advancing age; however, the specific time point in the adult life span at which this deficit begins and the rate at which it advances are still controversial. There is no agreement on whether working memory declines equally for visuospatial and verbal information, and the literature disagrees on how task difficulty may influence this decay. We addressed these questions in a lifespan sample of 1,500 participants between 21 and 80 years old. The n-back task was used, with letters and circles presented at different positions around an imaginary circle, to evaluate working memory in the verbal and visuospatial domains, respectively. The participants' task was to judge whether the current stimulus matched a stimulus that was shown n trials prior. Both domains were evaluated in two levels of difficulty: 1-back and 2-back. The comparison across decades showed that discrimination in the visuospatial and 1-back tasks started to decline earlier in women than in men; however, discrimination was equal between the sexes in the verbal and 2-back tasks. Performance on tasks in the visuospatial domain exhibited more pronounced decline than in those in the verbal domain. The rate of decline in working memory accuracy was superior in 2-back tasks than in 1-back tasks, independent of the domain. These results revealed that the effects of aging on working memory are less dependent on the type of information and more reliant on the resources demanded by the task.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of NeuroCognition, Faculty of Psychology, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Avenida Universidad 3004, Colonia Copilco Universidad, Building D, Second floor, Room 12, 04510, Mexico City, Mexico, selene@unam.mx.
authors.forename: Selene
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cansino
authors.forename: Evelia
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hernández-Ramos
authors.forename: Cinthya
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Estrada-Manilla
authors.forename: Frine
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Torres-Trejo
authors.forename: Joyce Graciela
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Martínez-Galindo
authors.forename: Mariana
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ayala-Hernández
authors.forename: Tania
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gómez-Fernández
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Osorio
authors.forename: Melisa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cedillo-Tinoco
authors.forename: Lissete
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Garcés-Flores
authors.forename: Karla
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Beltrán-Palacios
authors.forename: Haydée Guadalupe
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: García-Lázaro
authors.forename: Fabiola
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: García-Gutiérrez
authors.forename: Yadira
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cadena-Arenas
authors.forename: Luisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fernández-Apan
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bärtschi
authors.forename: María Dolores
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Rodríguez-Ortiz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012737:Sex Factors; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
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