Given natural memory limitations, people can generally attend to and remember high-value over low-value information even when cognitive resources are depleted in older age and under divided attention during encoding, representing an important form of cognitive control. In the current study, we examined whether tasks requiring overlapping processing resources may impair the ability to selectively encode information in dual-task conditions. Participants in the divided-attention conditions of Experiment 1 completed auditory tone-distractor tasks that required them to discriminate between tones of different pitches (audio-nonspatial) or auditory channels (audio-spatial), while studying items in different locations in a grid (visual-spatial) differing in reward value. Results indicated that, while reducing overall memory accuracy, neither cross-modal auditory distractor task influenced participants’ ability to selectively encode high-value items relative to a full attention condition, suggesting maintained cognitive control. Participants in Experiment 2 studied the same important visual-spatial information while completing demanding color (visual-nonspatial) or pattern (visual-spatial) discrimination tasks during study. While the cross-modal visual-nonspatial task did not influence memory selectivity, the intra-modal visual-spatial secondary task eliminated participants’ sensitivity to item value. These results add novel evidence of conditions of impaired cognitive control, suggesting that the effectiveness of top-down, selective encoding processes is attenuated when concurrent tasks rely on overlapping processing resources.

鉴于自然记忆的限制，即使认知资源在老年时耗尽并且在编码过程中注意力分散，人们通常仍能注意并记住高价值而不是低价值的信息，这是认知控制的一种重要形式。在当前的研究中，我们检查了需要重叠处理资源的任务是否可能会损害在双任务条件下选择性编码信息的能力。实验 1 注意力分散条件下的参与者完成了听觉音调干扰任务，要求他们区分不同音高（音频非空间）或听觉通道（音频空间）的音调，同时研究网格中不同位置的项目（视觉空间）奖励值不同。结果表明，虽然降低了整体记忆准确性，但跨模式听觉干扰任务都不会影响参与者相对于全神贯注条件选择性编码高价值项目的能力，这表明维持了认知控制。实验2的参与者在研究过程中完成要求较高的颜色（视觉非空间）或图案（视觉空间）辨别任务的同时，研究了同样重要的视觉空间信息。虽然跨模态视觉-非空间任务不影响记忆选择性，但模内视觉-空间次要任务消除了参与者对项目价值的敏感性。这些结果增加了认知控制受损的新证据，表明当并发任务依赖于重叠的处理资源时，自上而下的选择性编码过程的有效性会减弱。