Visual working memory (WM) was investigated in young (18-35 yrs) and older (63-88 yrs) adults by assessing use of visual and verbal processing, and strategic approach. Experiment 1 comprised a visual interference paradigm, to investigate visual rehearsal during an abstract visual WM task. Results suggested both groups used a visual strategy, but older adults struggled more when visual interference was administered first, perhaps due to difficulty developing non-visual strategies. In Experiment 2, a more meaningful task version was additionally administered, offering greater opportunity for multimodal coding. Despite the marked effect of age, both groups benefited from semantic availability to the same extent. Young adults reported a verbal strategy more than older adults, who reported less verbal labeling and more visual refreshing, and a less efficient approach overall. The results highlight age-related limitations in visual WM capacity and strategy use, but show potential for compensation, and a role for task practice.

中文翻译：

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年轻人和老年人视觉工作记忆表现的多模式编码和策略方法。

通过评估视觉和言语处理的使用以及策略性方法，对年轻人（18-35岁）和老年人（63-88岁）中的视觉工作记忆（WM）进行了调查。实验1包含视觉干扰范例，以研究抽象视觉WM任务期间的视觉彩排。结果表明，两组都使用了视觉策略，但是当首先进行视觉干预时，老年人会更加挣扎，这可能是由于制定非视觉策略的困难。在实验2中，另外管理了一个更有意义的任务版本，为多模式编码提供了更大的机会。尽管年龄有显着影响，但两组人都在相同程度上受益于语义可用性。年轻人报告的口头策略要多于老年人，他们的口头标签更少，视觉效果更清醒，总体而言效率较低。结果突出了视觉WM能力和策略使用中与年龄相关的限制，但显示了补偿的潜力以及任务实践的作用。