@article{ref1,
title="Individual differences in aging and cognitive control modulate the neural indexes of context updating and maintenance during task switching",
journal="Cortex",
year="2010",
author="Adrover-Roig, Daniel and Barceló, Francisco",
volume="46",
number="4",
pages="434-450",
abstract="This study aimed to explore the combined influence of age and cognitive control on the behavioural and electrophysiological indicators of local, restart and mixing costs. Two groups of middle-aged (49-60y.o., N=40) and older (61-80y.o., N=40) adults were split according to their overall z-score in a composite of six neuropsychological measures of executive function. All participants performed a task-cueing version of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) adapted for measuring event-related potentials, whereby tonal cues instructed to switch or repeat the task rule. A single-task condition with identical sensory and motor response demands was used to aid interpretation of behavioural and brain responses to cues and target events. Working memory updating of stimulus-response mappings, as putatively indexed by local switch costs and cue-locked P3 activity (350-460msec post-cue onset), was preserved in both older and low control adults. In turn, low control adults showed larger restart costs and enhanced cue-locked P2 amplitudes (190-250msec) in the task-switching condition only, suggesting lesser preparatory control in the presence of interference. Low control adults showed comparatively larger mixing costs and smaller cue-locked fronto-central slow negativities (500-700msec), suggesting an inefficient online maintenance of task-set information over time. In contrast, target-locked brain responses were mostly sensitive to age-related effects, with older adults showing two well-known effects: (1) an &quot;anterior shift&quot; in target P3 activity (350-460msec), and (2) an attenuation of fronto-central slow negativities in single-task and task-switching conditions, respectively. The additive association found between age and cognitive control for different behavioural indexes of task-switch costs suggests a differential influence of these factors upon two successive information processing stages: individual differences in cognitive control mainly influenced the neural indexes of preparatory task-set activation and maintenance, whereas age-related effects influenced the neural indexes of target response selection and task execution.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0010-9452",
doi="10.1016/j.cortex.2009.09.012",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2009.09.012"
}