Abstract
We examined the event-related brain potentials elicited by color-word stimuli in a Stroop task in which healthy participants (young and old) had to judge whether the meaning and the color of the stimulus were congruent or incongruent. The Stroop effect occurred in both age groups, with longer reaction times in the older group than in the young group for both types of stimuli, but no difference in the number of errors made by either group. Although the N2 and P3b latencies were longer in the older than in the younger group, there were no differences between groups in the latencies of earlier event-related potential components, and therefore the age-related processing slowing is not generalized. The frontal P150 amplitude was larger, and the parietal P3b amplitude was smaller, in the older than in the younger group. Furthermore, the P3b amplitude was maximal at frontal locations in older participants and at parietal locations in young participants. The age-related increase in perceptual resources and the posterior-to-anterior shift in older adults support adaptive reorganization of the neural networks involved in the processing of this Stroop-type task.
Highlights
IntroductionStructural and functional changes are produced in the brain and there is a decline in various cognitive processes, including a decline in performance of executive tasks (Raz, 2005; Reuter-Lorenz and Park, 2010; Fabiani, 2012).The Stroop task, which is a classical test of executive function, involves presentation of stimuli with two dimensions (word meaning and color) that may conflict (incongruent color-word stimuli, e.g., the word red written in blue) or overlap (congruent colorword stimuli, e.g., the word red written in red)
During normal aging, structural and functional changes are produced in the brain and there is a decline in various cognitive processes, including a decline in performance of executive tasks (Raz, 2005; Reuter-Lorenz and Park, 2010; Fabiani, 2012).The Stroop task, which is a classical test of executive function, involves presentation of stimuli with two dimensions that may conflict or overlap
It can be noticed that the older group showed longer reaction times (RTs) than the young group, and longer RTs for incongruent than for congruent stimuli (Stroop effect)
Summary
Structural and functional changes are produced in the brain and there is a decline in various cognitive processes, including a decline in performance of executive tasks (Raz, 2005; Reuter-Lorenz and Park, 2010; Fabiani, 2012).The Stroop task, which is a classical test of executive function, involves presentation of stimuli with two dimensions (word meaning and color) that may conflict (incongruent color-word stimuli, e.g., the word red written in blue) or overlap (congruent colorword stimuli, e.g., the word red written in red). The Stroop test is sensitive to the cognitive decline associated with normal aging, as demonstrated by the fact that the behavioral response to congruent and to incongruent stimuli is slower, and the Stroop effect is larger in older people than in young people (see MacLeod, 1991; Van der Elst et al, 2006; Peña-Casanova et al, 2009). The generalized slowing theory has traditionally been used to explain the behavioral decline observed in the Stroop task in elderly people This theory is mainly based on reaction times (RTs), which provide a measure of the overall cognitive processing speed. In this theory, it is assumed that the slower information processing in older than in young adults is generalized and gradual from the earliest stages of processing (Salthouse, 1996)
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