Age Differences in Target Detection and Interference Resolution in Working Memory: An Event-related Potential Study

Abstract

There is growing consensus that a decline in attentional control is a core aspect of cognitive aging. We used event-related potentials to examine the time course of attentional control in older and younger adults as they attempted to resolve familiarity-based and response-based interference during a working memory task. Accuracy was high for both groups but their neural response to targets and to distracters was markedly different. Young adults' early target selection was evident by 300 msec in a differentiated P3a and they responded to interference by generating a medial frontal negativity (MFN) to distracters by 450 msec that was largest when the need for interference resolution was greatest. Dipole source analyses revealed a temporal coactivation of the inferior frontal and anterior cingulate cortex in younger adults, suggesting that these regions may interact during interference resolution. Older adults did not show the early target-selective P3a effect and failed to subsequently produce the MFN in response to distracting stimuli. In fact, older adults showed a large frontal positivity in place of the MFN but, rather than serve a compensatory role, this frontal activation was associated with poorer behavioral performance. These data suggest that aging interferes with a dynamic interplay of early target selection followed by later suppression of distracter-related neural activity--a process central to the efficient control of attention.

Event-Related Brain Potentials in the Study of Inhibition: Cognitive Control, Source Localization and Age-Related Modulations

“…This inhibition age-related decline has also been identified in proactive interference studies (Tays et al 2008;Yi and Friedman 2014). Tays et al (2008) used high density electrophysiology to examine differences between older (N=18; M=72.4 years old, range 65-87; 14 women) and young (N=16; M=20 years old, range 18-26; 10 women) adults in a Sternberg Task.…”

“…Tays et al (2008) used high density electrophysiology to examine differences between older (N=18; M=72.4 years old, range 65-87; 14 women) and young (N=16; M=20 years old, range 18-26; 10 women) adults in a Sternberg Task. They identified a frontal negativity at 450 ms.…”

Mechanisms and neuronal networks involved in reactive and proactive cognitive control of interference in working memory

“…What is actually known about electrophysiological correlates and the temporal dynamics of reactive interference control? Tays et al (2008) used event relates potentials (ERP) to examine the time course of cognitive control of interference in working memory in a recent negative task. Because the authors aimed to evaluate the effect of aging, they compared a group of young subjects with a group of older subjects.…”

Examining the Expectation Deficit in Normal Aging: Figure 1.

“…Previous empirical work supports the idea that older adults have trouble extracting cue information and experience difficulty shifting their attentional focus, resulting in deficient response preparation (Häm-merer et al, 2010). An examination of the cue-P3a could help to disambiguate Zanto et al's (2011) findings, because the P3a is indicative of lifespan changes in cue utilization (Fallgatter et al, 1999;Häm-merer et al, 2010;Tays et al, 2008). Specifically, Hämmerer et al (2010) demonstrated that the frontal P3a is enhanced in older adults during a cued no-go task, and they argued that the increased contribution of frontal areas is indicative of greater attentional distraction costs resulting from inefficient discrimination between task-relevant and task-irrelevant cues.…”