Age-Related Differences Between Young and Old Adults: Effects of Advance Information on Task Switching. Issue 6 (December 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Chang, Wen-Pin; Shen, I-Hsuan; Wen, Chien-Pei; Chen, Chia-Ling
• Is Part Of: Perceptual and motor skills. Volume 127:Issue 6(2020)
• Page Start: 985
• Page End: 1014
• Publication Date: 2020-12
• Subjects: age-related cognition -- executive functioning -- frontal-cortical functioning -- cognitive decline; Perception -- Periodicals; Motor ability -- Periodicals; Motor Skills; Perception; Psychology; Electronic journals; Periodicals; 152
• DOI: 10.1177/0031512520930872
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0031-5125

Abstract

In this study we investigated the effects of advance information on task switching in young and old adults, using two forms of advance information (memory-based and cue-based) and a no advance information task. We compared 19 healthy young and 19 healthy older adults in terms of their behavioral performance and neural correlates under these three task-switching paradigms. We observed a significant difference in mixing cost between the two age groups. There was no switch cost group difference on the memory-based and cue-based tasks, but older adults showed a larger switch cost than younger adults on the no advance information task. On evoked potential measures, there was no group effect in P3 cue-locked positivity; but there was, a frontal shift of the target-locked P3, indexed as reactive control, among older adults. We observed an increased target-locked P3 in the no-information paradigm compared with the cue-based and memory-based paradigms in both groups. Task cue facilitated advance preparation and proactive control under the cue-based paradigm in both groups. Age-related decline and difficulty in control processes required for task goal maintenance were apparent among the older adults.