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Short Research Report

Dissociable Age Effects in Focus-Switching

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Published Online:June 06, 2011https://doi.org/10.1024/1662-9647/a000034

Abstract

Focus-switching has recently been identified as an executive control process with differential age sensitivity. To date, the assumption of dissociable age effects is based on only two kinds of tasks constricting its conclusiveness. In a study with 85 younger (19–35 years) and 91 older adults (59–80 years), age effects were again dissociable in two alternative tasks with respect to the availability and the accessibility of representations. The results validate earlier findings that focus-switching is primarily affected in maintaining representations rather than in accessing them.

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