SEQUENTIAL AND COORDINATIVE COMPLEXITY - AGE-BASED PROCESSING LIMITATIONS IN FIGURAL TRANSFORMATIONS

Dimensions of cognitive complexity in figural transformations were exa mined in the context of adult age differences. Sequential complexity w as manipulated through figural transformations of single objects in a multiple-object array. Coordinative complexity was induced through spa tial or nonspatial transformations of the entire array. Results confir med the prediction that age-related slowing is larger in coordinative complexity than in sequential complexity conditions. The effect was st able across 8 sessions (Experiment 1), was obtained when age groups we re equated in accuracy with criterion-referenced testing (Experiment 2 ), and was corroborated by age-differential probabilities of error typ es (Experiments 1 and 2). A model is proposed attributing age effects under coordinative complexity to 2 factors: (a) basic-level slowing an d (b) time-consuming reiterations through the processing sequence due to age-related working memory failures.