Working memory (WM) is one of the most investigated cognitive functions albeit the extent to which individual characteristics impact on performance is still unclear, especially when older adults are involved. The present study considers repeated practice of a visual -Back task with three difficulty levels (1-, 2-, and 3-Back) in healthy young and older individuals. Our results reveal that, for both age groups, the expected mental fatigue was countered by a learning effect, in terms of accuracies and reaction times, which turned out to benefit females more than males, for all three -Back levels. We conclude that future WM studies, in particular when relying on repeated -Back sessions, should account for learning effects in relation to mental fatigue and gender, in both young and older adults.

中文翻译：

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精神疲劳和性别对年轻人和老年人重复练习过程中工作记忆表现的影响

工作记忆 (WM) 是研究最多的认知功能之一，尽管个体特征对表现的影响程度仍不清楚，尤其是当涉及老年人时。本研究考虑了在健康的年轻人和老年人中重复练习具有三个难度级别（1-、2-和 3-Back）的视觉- Back 任务。我们的研究结果表明，对于两个年龄组，预期的精神疲劳都被学习效果所抵消，在准确性和反应时间方面，结果证明，对于所有三个背部水平，女性比男性更受益。我们得出的结论是，未来的 WM 研究，特别是在依赖于重复-背课应该考虑到与精神疲劳和性别有关的学习影响，无论是年轻人还是老年人。