Event Abstract Back to Event Age-related event-related potential differences in auditory encoding and target processing István Czigler1* and Kinga Gyimesi1 1 Institute for Psychology, HAS, Hungary In comparison to vision, relative little research is devoted to the possibility of equally important age-related changes in auditory selective attention, and the consequences of attentional selectivity on task performance. Results of event-related potential (ERP) studies using traditional stimulus set-type designs do not report considerable age-related changes in early selection processes. In a version of the memory scanning tasks, in two age groups we compared early (N1) and later (LPC) ERP components to task-relevant and irrelevant auditory events. The stimuli were aversive noises and rich sounds. In a sequence of four stimuli either the noises or the tones had to memorize, and decide later whether a probe was, or was not a member of the to-be-remembered set. Performance was higher in the younger group. N1 to the stimuli of the sequences were generally larger in the older group, and task-relevant stimuli elicited larger N1. However, unlike in the visual modality, no age-related difference emerged between the N1 amplitudes to the relevant and irrelevant stimuli. As an age-related effect, in case of the sound stimuli (the more difficult condition) N1 was larger in the low-performing participants, while in the younger group we obtained the opposite relationship. In the younger group we obtained large P3 (P3b) amplitude difference between the ERPs to relevant and irrelevant stimuli, while in the older group P3b the difference was absent (noises) or it was small (sounds). As these results show, in the auditory modality considerable age-related differences emerged in later stages of processing, i.e., while gating processes were similar in the two age-groups, specific stimulus properties were less selectively processed in elderly. Funding: Supported by TAMOP, Hungary. Keywords: Aging, P3 Conference: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI), Palma, Mallorca, Spain, 25 Sep - 29 Sep, 2011. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster Sessions: Cognitive Aging Citation: Czigler I and Gyimesi K (2011). Age-related event-related potential differences in auditory encoding and target processing. Conference Abstract: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2011.207.00617 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 15 Nov 2011; Published Online: 28 Nov 2011. * Correspondence: Prof. István Czigler, Institute for Psychology, HAS, Budapest, Hungary, czigler.istvan@ttk.mta.hu Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers István Czigler Kinga Gyimesi Google István Czigler Kinga Gyimesi Google Scholar István Czigler Kinga Gyimesi PubMed István Czigler Kinga Gyimesi Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.