Age-related differences in the use of automatic and controlled processes in a situation of sustained attention. (August 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Staub, Bérengère; Doignon-Camus, Nadège; Marques-Carneiro, José Eduardo; Bacon, Élisabeth; Bonnefond, Anne
• Is Part Of: Neuropsychologia. Volume 75(2015)
• Page Start: 607
• Page End: 616
• Publication Date: 2015-08
• Subjects: Aging -- Vigilance -- Time-on-task -- SART; Neuropsychology -- Periodicals; Neurology -- Periodicals; Psychophysiology -- Periodicals; Neuropsychologie -- Périodiques; Neuropsychology; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 616.8
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.07.021
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0028-3932

Abstract

Abstract: Previous studies examining sustained attention ability in older adults have yielded inconsistent results: age-related decline in studies using traditionally formatted tasks (TFT), in which subjects have to respond to rare targets, and preservation in studies using Go/No-Go tasks, in which subjects have to withhold response to rare targets. The purpose of this study was to examine whether these discrepancies could be explained by a differential use of automatic and controlled processes according to age. To that end, we used two versions of the same task differing in response mode (TFT, Go/No-Go), and the event-related potential (ERP) technique. The within-task comparison first revealed that older adults exhibited a vigilance decrement in the TFT SART, while their performance actually improved in the Go/No-Go SART. Secondly, in both tasks, ERP results notably evidenced increased P2s and non-target P3s in older adults, components related to the allocation of attentional resources. Altogether, our results suggest that in both tasks older adults adopted a controlled processing mode, which resulted in opposite effects on performance according to the nature of the task. Highlights: We examined sustained attention ability in two age groups (young/old). Two versions of the same task differing only in response mode have been used. Differential use of automatic and controlled processes according to age have been highlighted. As evidenced by ERP results, in both tasks older adults adopted a controlled processing mode.