Complexity of Primary Lifetime Occupation and Cognitive Processing

Abstract

Today, there are a lack of studies focusing on the relationship between occupational complexity and executive functioning. This is noteworthy since executive functions are core aspects of cognitive processing. The present study was aimed to investigate if three occupational complexity factors (with data, people, and things) of main lifetime occupation were related to performance in executive tasks (inhibition, switching, updating). We analyzed cross-sectional data that were available for 225 participants aged 50-75 years. Results from structural equation models showed that higher complexity levels of working with data were related to lower error rates in the updating component of cognitive control. In addition, higher rates of complexity working with people was associated with lower error rates in task-switching, which also persisted after adjustment of fluid intelligence. Complexity with things, however, was not related to performance in the executive tasks. Future studies would benefit from a longitudinal design to investigate if the results from this study also hold in the long term and to further investigate the directionality between factors.

Keywords: DOT; cognition; executive functioning; inhibition; occupational complexity; switching; updating; work complexity.

FIGURE 1

Illustration of the structural equation model(s) used in the present study. Covariance paths (not shown) were drawn between each predictor variable. Predictors and error terms (D) for latent variables were correlated by double headed arrows. ^*Updating as dependent variable was only included in analyses of error rates since processing cost in RT is not calculated for these tasks. Occupational complexity working with data, people, and things was estimated according to Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT).