WORKING-MEMORY RESOURCE-ALLOCATION BY YOUNG, MIDDLE-AGED, AND OLD ADULTS

Three hypotheses regarding the locus of age differences in working mem ory were examined in an experiment in which young, middle-aged, and ol d adults remembered the names of persons standing in line while also p erforming mental addition. Instructions as to the relative importance of these two tasks were manipulated. The results are highly compatible with the hypothesis of an age-related deficit in a single pool of res ources that can be allocated to different tasks. They do not support h ypotheses of deficits in one or more pools used separately for process ing and storage functions. Middle-aged adults performed as well as you ng adults and better than old adults.