Memorizing while walking: Increase in dual-task costs from young adulthood to old age.

Lindenberger, Ulman; Marsiske, Michael; Baltes, Paul B. · 2000 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1037//0882-7974.15.3.417

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Summary

This study investigates whether the simultaneous execution of a locomotion task (walking on a narrow track) and a memory task (memorizing word lists) becomes increasingly difficult with advancing age. The research is motivated by the hypothesis that sensorimotor performance requires greater "attentional resources" in older adults due to age-related declines in motor and sensory functioning. Specifically, the authors predicted that dual-task costs (DTCs)—the performance decrement observed when two tasks are performed simultaneously compared to singly—would increase from young adulthood to old age because balance and gait become more cognitively demanding. The study employed a dual-task paradigm with 140 participants divided into three age groups: young (20–30 years), middle-aged (40–50 years), and old (60–70 years). Participants were trained to criterion in the Method of Loci (MOL), a mnemonic technique, to ensure comparable memory proficiency across age groups. They then performed memory encoding while sitting, standing, or walking on two narrow tracks of differing complexity (oval and aperiodic). Walking performance was assessed for speed and accuracy both with and without concurrent memory encoding. To control for task difficulty, half of the participants received four sessions of walking practice with feedback, while the other half served as a control group. Data analysis utilized orthogonal contrasts to compare age groups, treating age as a categorical factor rather than a continuous variable. The results confirmed the primary prediction: dual-task costs increased significantly with age in both memory and walking domains. Relative to young adults, the effect size of the overall increase in DTCs was 0.98 standard deviation units for middle-aged adults and 1.47 standard deviation units for old adults. This indicates that older adults experienced disproportionately larger performance decrements when multitasking compared to younger individuals. The study also noted that the more complex "aperiodic" track imposed higher cognitive demands, further exacerbating these costs. The findings support the conclusion that sensory and motor aspects of behavior, such as walking, increasingly require cognitive control with advancing age. This suggests that the automaticity of locomotion declines in old age, forcing older adults to allocate more attentional resources to basic motor tasks. Consequently, the capacity to perform concurrent cognitive tasks is reduced. The study highlights the ecological validity of these findings, implying that everyday activities requiring simultaneous movement and cognition may become more challenging for older adults, potentially contributing to risks such as falls or reduced social engagement. The inclusion of middle-aged adults also suggests that these increases in dual-task costs begin to emerge in mid-life, rather than appearing abruptly in late adulthood.

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• dual task performance