TY - JOUR
T1 - Event-related brain potentials reveal strategy selection in younger and older adults
AU - Bowie, Daniel C.
AU - Low, Kathy A.
AU - Fabiani, Monica
AU - Gratton, Gabriele
N1 - Funding Information:
In conclusion, the current findings suggest that, like younger adults, healthy older adults can dynamically adjust their attentional biases in a trial-by-trial, cue-driven manner. The claim that strategic modulation of cognitive control remains at least partially intact during aging is supported by behavioral and electrophysiological results. These results clearly demonstrated that the congruency effect was larger following cues that predicted a congruent array as opposed to an incongruent array, with uninformative cues (i.e., 50/50) generally resulting in intermediate values. We believe that this graded congruency effect is the consequence of cue-dependent, strategic adjustments to the preference for information accumulated during the early, incomplete stage of stimulus evaluation versus the late, complete stage of stimulus evaluation. Therefore, the results of this study suggest that older adults may possess a relatively intact ability to proactively control their processing settings, at least when working memory is not overly taxed. These findings partially contradict research that suggests that proactive control, or the ability to maintain and utilize contextual representations to modulate attentional control, declines with age. Future research, with more widely representative samples, is needed to determine whether this apparent contradiction is due to the fact the paradigm used in the current study has low working memory requirements.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2021/9
Y1 - 2021/9
N2 - It is well-established that younger adults prioritize information accrued during different stages of stimulus evaluation (“early” versus “late”) to optimize performance. The extent to which older adults flexibly adjust their processing strategies, however, is largely unexplored. Twenty-four younger and twenty-four older participants completed a cued flanker task in which one of three cues, indicating the probability that a congruent array would appear (75 %, 50 %, or 25 %), was presented on each trial. Behavioral and ERP (CNV, LRP, N2, and P3b) analyses allowed us to infer cue-driven changes in strategy selection. Results indicate that when both younger and older adults expected an incongruent array, they prioritized late, target information, resulting in a decreased susceptibility to the performance-impairing effect of distractors, extending the conclusions of Gratton et al. (1992) to older adults and supporting the claim that strategic control remains largely intact during healthy aging.
AB - It is well-established that younger adults prioritize information accrued during different stages of stimulus evaluation (“early” versus “late”) to optimize performance. The extent to which older adults flexibly adjust their processing strategies, however, is largely unexplored. Twenty-four younger and twenty-four older participants completed a cued flanker task in which one of three cues, indicating the probability that a congruent array would appear (75 %, 50 %, or 25 %), was presented on each trial. Behavioral and ERP (CNV, LRP, N2, and P3b) analyses allowed us to infer cue-driven changes in strategy selection. Results indicate that when both younger and older adults expected an incongruent array, they prioritized late, target information, resulting in a decreased susceptibility to the performance-impairing effect of distractors, extending the conclusions of Gratton et al. (1992) to older adults and supporting the claim that strategic control remains largely intact during healthy aging.
KW - Aging
KW - Cognitive control
KW - Congruency effect (CE)
KW - Event related brain potentials (ERPs)
KW - Lateralized readiness potential (LRP)
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U2 - 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2021.108163
DO - 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2021.108163
M3 - Article
C2 - 34331995
AN - SCOPUS:85112454446
SN - 0301-0511
VL - 164
JO - Biological Psychology
JF - Biological Psychology
M1 - 108163
ER -