Older Adults Encode Task-Irrelevant Stimuli, but Can This Side-Effect be Useful to Them?

Copyright © 2020 Gaál, Nagy, File and Czigler..

We studied whether, due to deteriorating inhibitory functions, older people are more likely to process irrelevant stimuli; and if so, could they later use this information better than young adults. In the study phase of our experiment, a Posner-type gaze-cued version of a Simon task was performed in which we presented task-irrelevant cues, where faces or patches with either left- or right-looking dots for the pupil of the eye preceded the task to press a button congruent or incongruent with the presentation side of the target stimulus. In the follow-up test phase, participants completed an unexpected facial recognition test. In the study phase not only a decreased P1, but also an increased N170 amplitude of the event-related potentials (ERPs) were found in older, compared to younger adults, and also for faces compared to patches. Even though in the test phase both age-groups could recognize the faces better than statistically by chance, neither the older nor the younger participants could discriminate them effectively. The late positive component (LPC)-the ERP correlates of the old/new effect, being the higher amplitude for the earlier presented stimuli when compared with the unseen stimuli during the recognition test-was not evolved in the older group, while a reversed old/new effect was seen in younger participants: higher amplitude was found in New-Right and Old-Wrong conditions (for faces they did not recognize independent of seeing them before) compared to Old-Right and New-Wrong conditions (for faces they thought they recognized from the study phase). In conclusion, although older adults showed enhanced processing of task-irrelevant stimuli compared to younger adults, as indicated by the N170 amplitude, however, they were not able to utilize this information in a later task, as was suggested by the recognition rate and LPC amplitude results.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2020

Erschienen:

2020

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:14

Enthalten in:

Frontiers in human neuroscience - 14(2020) vom: 01., Seite 569614

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Gaál, Zsófia Anna [VerfasserIn]
Nagy, Boglárka [VerfasserIn]
File, Domonkos [VerfasserIn]
Czigler, István [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Aging
ERP
Journal Article
LPC
N170
Old/new effect

Anmerkungen:

Date Revised 18.12.2020

published: Electronic-eCollection

Citation Status PubMed-not-MEDLINE

doi:

10.3389/fnhum.2020.569614

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM318939789