Abstract
Objective: To determine if aging is associated with differences in attentional regulation using behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) measures. Methods: Younger ( n=13; M=20 years) and older ( n=12; M=76 years) subjects performed an auditory cued attention task. Verbal cues correctly (valid) or incorrectly (invalid) predicted the ear receiving a target tone 1.5 s later, or were uninformative (neutral). Targets were either ‘high’ (2000 Hz) or ‘low’ (1000 Hz) pitch monaural tones. Subjects pressed one of 4 buttons to indicate target ear and pitch. ERPs following cues and targets (P50, N100, P200, slow waves), and negative slow potentials (CNV) between cues and targets were assessed. Results: Cue information had significant effects on reaction time for both groups (valid<neutral<invalid). Target N100 amplitude was significantly affected by cueing in younger (invalid>valid) but not older subjects. Target slow waves were also affected by cue information (invalid>valid), and the difference was larger and lasted longer in older subjects. Slow waves following cues were significantly larger in older subjects, but the subsequent CNV amplitudes were comparable among groups. Conclusions: When performing a cued attention task, age differences are present in transient ERPs following cues and targets. Significance: Age differences in ERPs associated with attentional regulation support the hypothesis that attentional changes contribute to cognitive aging.
Highlights
Normal aging is accompanied by performance declines in many tasks that assess working memory, episodic memory, reasoning, and spatial abilities (Craik and Salthouse, 1992)
Cued attention tasks have been used to study attentional regulation by using cues to predict a feature of an upcoming target (Posner, 1980; Posner and Cohen, 1984)
Reaction time exhibits cueing effects with faster responses when targets are consistent with cue information, and slower responses when targets are inconsistent with cue information
Summary
Normal aging is accompanied by performance declines in many tasks that assess working memory, episodic memory, reasoning, and spatial abilities (Craik and Salthouse, 1992). A wide range of cognitive tasks share much of their age-related variance, which suggests that age-related differences are largely due to changes in basic processes that are engaged during many types of cognitive activities (Lindenberger and Baltes, 1994; McDowd and Shaw, 2000; Salthouse, 1996). Inhibitory aspects of attention have been proposed to be a basic component of cognitive aging (Hasher and Zacks, 1988), and are thought to be important for switching attention among relevant events (Hasher and Zacks, 1988; McDowd and Shaw, 2000). Attentional regulation has been conceptualized as a tradeoff between the level of engagement for expected events and the necessity to respond to important, unexpected events (Kinchla, 1992). Efficient attentional regulation is evident by high levels of performance to both expected and unexpected events. Intermediate reaction times are observed following uninformative cues (neutral trials) (Posner, 1980; Quinlan and Bailey, 1995; Spence and Driver, 1994; Wright et al, 1995)
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