Recently, there were mainly two controversies in the research of working memory (WM), fluid intelligence (Fl) and aging. First controversy was about whether the performance dif}'erence between younger and older adults on WM/ central executive function (CEF) was attributable to the age difference oh general FI. Second controversy was about whether CEF can be fractionated. Almost all previous researches considered only one CEP in one experiment, so the relationship between those functions has not been clear.
This study was designed to explore the unique and unitary of CEf. Three CEFs (random generation, selective attention, and memory updating) were considered. The results showed that 1) age effect was significant on random generation and memory updating (MU). However, there was no age effect on selective attention. 2) The age effect was significant on MU even if age deficits in FI were controlled. 3) Although different levels did not interact with age (a different CEFs had different age effect. 4) strong all-or-none effect) within each CEF,After FI was statistical controlled, the correlation between different CEf tasks was not significant, but the correlation between different levels within each CEF was still significant.
Taken together, these results suggest that the deFcit in CEF should be unique, and at lease partially independent of age differences in general FI (referring to result 2, 4); moreover, CEF should not be a unitary system but include separable functions (referring to result 1,3).
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